Jack Smith says he won’t be silenced as Senate hearing turns into clash over Trump prosecutions
By SCN News | Washington
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. special counsel Jack Smith defended his investigations of President Donald Trump before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, saying political pressure and threats of prosecution would not silence him as senators clashed over whether his work represented legitimate law enforcement or an abuse of prosecutorial power.
Smith, who brought two federal criminal cases against Trump after his first presidency, told lawmakers that he stood by the decisions made during the investigations and rejected accusations that his team had been motivated by partisan considerations. The Sept. 29 hearing was convened by the Senate Judiciary Committee under the title “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters,” with Smith appearing as the witness.
“I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the president or others,” Smith told the committee. He said the decisions made by his office were based on evidence rather than Trump’s political affiliation, activities or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. Smith also said he would make the same prosecutorial decision if confronted with the same facts involving a president from either major political party.
The hearing reopened one of Washington’s most contentious disputes over the investigations that followed Trump’s first term in office. Smith was appointed special counsel in 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and ultimately brought separate cases concerning Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified government documents after leaving the White House.
Neither federal case reached trial. Smith ended the prosecutions after Trump won the 2024 election, citing longstanding Justice Department policy against the federal prosecution of a sitting president. Trump had denied wrongdoing and repeatedly characterized Smith’s investigations as politically motivated.
Republicans focus on congressional records
A central point of contention at Tuesday’s hearing was Smith’s investigative access to records involving members of Congress. Republican lawmakers have argued that the collection of phone-related records and other communications demonstrated that the special counsel’s investigation exceeded legitimate boundaries.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said information obtained through congressional oversight raised broader questions about records involving Republican lawmakers, donors and journalists. Grassley and other Republicans have portrayed Smith’s investigation as politically motivated, an accusation Smith rejected.
Smith defended investigators’ acquisition of phone toll records, which show information such as the time, duration and parties associated with calls but do not contain the conversations themselves. He said investigators needed the records because they had evidence that Trump and his allies sought to contact senators on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was meeting to certify the presidential election result.
The controversy has widened beyond those call records. Republican senators said in July that Smith’s team had reviewed text messages involving 44 members of Congress while examining material connected with White House aides. Smith and his lawyers have maintained that his previous congressional testimony about toll records was truthful and that questions about those records were distinct from other materials investigators obtained.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan referred Smith to the Justice Department in July over allegations that he made misleading statements in earlier congressional testimony. Smith’s attorneys dispute that characterization, and no criminal charges against Smith had been filed as of Tuesday’s hearing.
Partisan divide dominates hearing
The hearing exposed sharply different interpretations of Smith’s tenure.
Republicans pressed the former special counsel over investigative methods and argued that the Trump cases illustrated the political use of federal prosecutorial authority. Grassley described Smith’s operation as partisan and questioned whether established safeguards had been respected.
Democrats countered that Smith was being targeted because he investigated and charged Trump. Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, accused Republicans of attacking Smith personally while diverting attention from the conduct that originally prompted the investigations. Durbin had said ahead of the hearing that Smith had sought an opportunity to testify publicly under oath before the committee.
The exchanges occasionally moved beyond the central legal questions. Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt accused Smith of perjury during a dispute over whether Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February 2024. Smith denied attending that game and said he recalled attending a women’s college basketball game involving Iowa and Maryland. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar subsequently called on Schmitt to apologize for the accusation.
Smith also defended the prosecutors, investigators and staff who worked under him, criticizing what he described as their vilification following Trump’s return to the White House.
His broader warning extended beyond the fate of his own investigations. Smith told senators that he believed threats against prosecutors and other public servants posed a challenge to the rule of law, framing the dispute as one involving whether federal investigators can pursue politically powerful figures without fear of personal retaliation. Republicans, by contrast, argued that accountability for prosecutors is necessary when investigators are suspected of exceeding their authority.
Tuesday’s testimony therefore did not resolve the long-running dispute surrounding the Trump investigations. Instead, it shifted part of that battle from the underlying criminal cases — which are no longer being prosecuted — to congressional scrutiny of how the investigations themselves were conducted and whether investigators should face consequences for their actions.
For Smith, the central message was that he continued to stand behind the prosecutions despite that scrutiny. For senators, the hearing underscored a deeper institutional argument over the limits of investigative power, congressional protections and the independence of federal law enforcement when an investigation reaches the presidency.