Former special counsel Jack Smith told Congress on Thursday that President Trump is a criminal worthy of conviction, brushing aside Republican accusations that he ran an unethical prosecution in pursuit of one goal — to prevent Mr. Trump from reclaiming the White House.
Mr. Smith testified to the House Judiciary Committee in an event that promised high drama but ultimately low stakes, with his claims of evidence and declarations of guilt relegated to legal oblivion by the American voter.
“I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including the decision to bring charges against President Trump,” Mr. Smith said. “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.”
Mr. Smith had won two indictments against the president, one stemming from classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago after Mr. Trump’s first term and the other related to his behavior surrounding the 2020 election.
“No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account,” Mr. Smith said.
He said he approached his job with impartiality, insisting he had “no partisan loyalties.”
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, though, said that was tough to square with his pursuit of Mr. Trump, which involved pushing for a trial before the 2024 election and, when that wasn’t going to happen, rushing to get anti-Trump information made part of the record before the election.
“It was always about politics,” Mr. Jordan said. “This good news is the American people saw through it.”
Mr. Jordan also used Mr. Smith to puncture former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 investigative committee for its use of former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.
Ms. Hutchinson famously testified in a prime-time congressional hearing that Mr. Trump lunged across the seat of his vehicle to try to grab the steering wheel and go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The others in the vehicle said that never happened.
Mr. Smith danced around the issue, admitting that his team talked with someone in the car who said the incident never happened but still saying he was considering using Ms. Hutchinson as a witness in his criminal case against the president.
Mr. Jordan said that undercut Mr. Smith’s claims of impartiality.
“That says it all. That’s the degree the left and Democrats were willing to go to get President Trump,” he said. “Everybody knows she was making it up.”
Mr. Smith was appointed special counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland on Nov. 18, 2022 — three days after Mr. Trump officially announced he would make a 2024 run at the White House.
Mr. Trump was seeking to unseat President Biden, Mr. Garland’s boss.
Before Thursday’s testimony, Mr. Smith sat for a closed-door deposition with the Judiciary Committee in December.
He begged for the chance to testify publicly, and Mr. Jordan agreed to allow it.
