The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday compelling testimony from Jack Smith, the former special counsel who pursued prosecutions against President Trump.
Mr. Smith was ordered to turn over documents by Dec. 12 and to show up for a deposition on Dec. 17.
Chairman Jim Jordan said the goal is to delve into the cases Mr. Smith brought against Mr. Trump and co-defendants, plus into the counsel’s tactics — such as trying to win a gag order against the former president even as he was running for the White House again.
“Due to your service as special counsel, the committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter,” Rep. Jordan, Ohio Republican, said in a letter delivering the subpoena to Mr. Smith’s lawyers.
The deposition will take place behind closed doors.
Peter Koski, Mr. Smith’s lawyer, said the former special counsel is ready to tell his story, but wanted it to happen in an open hearing the public could see.
“We are disappointed that offer was rejected and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics,” Mr. Koski said. “Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation.”
Mr. Smith won two criminal indictments against Mr. Trump. One, in Florida, accused him of mishandling classified documents. The other, in Washington, accused him of malfeasance surrounding the 2020 election and its aftermath.
The Florida case was tossed by the judge overseeing it, while the case in Washington was dropped after Mr. Trump won his election last year. The Justice Department has a policy of not pursuing charges against a sitting president.
Mr. Smith, in a report submitted to Congress and released ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, said the president would have been convicted if he hadn’t won the election.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Mr. Smith said at the time.
His cases against Mr. Trump were predicated on a belief that the then-former president had knowingly lied by making false claims about the 2020 election outcome, and that he “willfully” spurred supporters to rush the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disrupting the Electoral College counting.
Mr. Smith labeled Mr. Trump “the individual most responsible for what occurred at the Capitol on January 6.”
Questions about Mr. Smith’s pursuit of Mr. Trump dogged the cases, and they have grown louder as the new administration has released troubling details about parts of the investigation.
Among those is Mr. Smith’s seeking — and a court’s approval of — subpoenas for phone records of sitting members of Congress.
Mr. Smith also subpoenaed records of figures from the first Trump administration, such as Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, and communications that went to media companies, according to documents released by Congress.
Mr. Smith’s lawyers have said he “adhered to established legal standards and Justice Department guidelines” in pursuing the cases.
That includes the subpoenas seeking phone records of sitting lawmakers.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House committee, said Mr. Smith should have had a chance to tell his story in public testimony.
“Judiciary Committee Republicans want to force the special counsel into the shadows of a backroom interrogation and subject him to the tiresome and loathsome partisan tactics of leak-and-distort, when the American public is demanding transparency and a public hearing,” Mr. Raskin said.
Mr. Smith’s probe grew out of a Biden Justice Department investigation dubbed Arctic Frost.
Republicans have called Arctic Frost an anti-Trump “fishing expedition.”
The probe began at the FBI in April 2022.
In November of that year, Attorney General Merrick Garland named Mr. Smith as a special counsel, putting him in charge of the pursuit of Mr. Trump.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said Mr. Smith’s investigation was “worse than Watergate.” He said the FBI went through extraordinary lengths to try to shield Mr. Smith’s aggressive investigative tactics.
The Office of Special Counsel, an independent government agency that is separate from Mr. Smith’s old special counsel job and which polices the Hatch Act, said this summer that it was investigating Mr. Smith.
Mr. Jordan previously referred Thomas Windom, who was Mr. Smith’s senior assistant special counsel, to the Justice Department for possible charges of obstruction of Congress.
While Mr. Windom did appear twice for depositions, Mr. Jordan said he gave such incomplete answers and offered such legally unfounded explanations as to make his conduct worthy of criminal investigation.
