Former special counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecution of President Trump, saying in Wednesday’s closed-door interview with House lawmakers that he would not back down from launching the two criminal cases, “based on the same facts today.”
Mr. Smith is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, which is conducting a probe of the Biden-era weaponization of the Justice Department.
He defended his prosecution of Mr. Trump.
“I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor,” Mr. Smith told the congressmen, according to excerpts obtained by The Washington Times.
Mr. Smith faces scrutiny from Republican lawmakers about his handling of the Trump prosecution, which involved secretly spying on the phone data of senators and House lawmakers, among them Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican. Republicans accuse Mr. Smith of weaponizing his position to prevent Mr. Trump from winning a second term.
Democrats want to know more about the two criminal cases involving Mr. Trump, both of which have been dismissed or tossed out.
“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” Mr. Smith said.
Mr. Smith said his prosecution was nonpartisan and he would again move forward with it based on the facts, “regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.”
Mr. Smith brought two criminal cases against Mr. Trump under the Biden administration, one involving the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and a second case charging Mr. Trump with election interference in 2020.
Mr. Smith dropped the election interference case following Mr. Trump’s 2024 election win in accordance with Justice Department policy not to prosecute a sitting president. A federal judge threw out the classified documents case, siding with GOP lawyers who said Mr. Smith was illegally appointed to the special counsel position.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Mr. Smith said. “Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a bathroom and a ballroom where events and gatherings took place. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
