Former peculiar counsel Jack Smith arrives for a closed-door deposition with members of the House Judiciary Committee connected the prosecutions of President Donald Trump, successful Rayburn gathering connected Wednesday, December 17, 2025.
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Jack Smith, the former U.S. Justice Department special counsel who brought 2 now-dropped transgression cases against President Donald Trump, defended his probe earlier a House of Representatives panel connected Wednesday. Smith told lawmakers that the ground for the prosecutions "rests wholly with President Trump and his actions."
Smith gave backstage grounds to the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee following months of disclosures from Trump appointees astatine the Justice Department and Republican lawmakers intended to discredit Smith's probe and bolster Trump's claims that the cases were an maltreatment of the ineligible system. Smith and his squad secured indictments successful 2023, accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents pursuing his archetypal word successful bureau and plotting to overturn his decision successful the 2020 election. Smith dropped some cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
"If asked whether to prosecute a erstwhile president based connected the aforesaid facts today, I would bash truthful careless of whether the president was a Republican oregon Democrat," Smith told the committee, according to excerpts from his opening connection seen by Reuters.
His quality astatine the Capitol came aft the Republican seat of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, subpoenaed Smith for a closed-door deposition. Smith requested a nationalist hearing.
Republican lawmakers person expressed outrage astatine disclosures that investigators sought accusation from a wide scope of blimpish organizations arsenic portion of the probe into Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 predetermination nonaccomplishment and besides obtained constricted compartment telephone information from 8 Republican senators during the play astir the Jan. 6, 2021 attack connected the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
Trump allies person pointed to those disclosures arsenic grounds that Smith's probe was overzealous and targeted the governmental opposition.
Smith has said his prosecutors followed Justice Department policy and were not influenced by politics. He told lawmakers successful his opening connection that the records were "relevant to implicit a broad investigation."
"President Trump and his associates tried to telephone Members of Congress in furtherance of their transgression scheme, urging them to further hold certification of the 2020 election," Smith said. "I didn't take those Members; President Trump did."
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