Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led multiple high-profile criminal investigations into Donald Trump, has asked congressional leaders to allow him to openly testify as the GOP probes his past work.
In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate judiciary committees, lawyers for Smith said they were seeking the public testimony route “given the many mischaracterizations of Mr. Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has voiced his support for public testimony from Smith.
“To this day, [the Department of Justice] is fighting to prevent the release of the Special Counsel’s full report regarding this criminal activity,” Raskin wrote in a letter to committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan. “I know you agree that the American people, whose tax dollars funded these investigations, have a compelling interest—indeed a right—in hearing directly from Mr. Smith about both investigations into the sitting President of the United States. “
Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday the committees are focused on gathering facts first.
“Jack Smith certainly has a lot of answering to do, but first, Congress needs to have all the facts at its disposal,” Grassley told CNN in a statement. “Hearings should follow once the investigative foundation has been firmly set, which is why I’m actively working with the DOJ and FBI to collect all relevant records that Mr. Smith had years to become familiar with.”
Smith led two investigations into Trump, one concerning his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction of their return after leaving office, and another centered around Trump’s attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Both investigations led to criminal charges against Trump, who pleaded not guilty, denied all wrongdoing, and has long alleged the prosecutions were politically biased.
In 2024, a federal court dismissed the documents case, prompting prosecutors to mount a last-minute appeal.
Once Trump was reelected, Smith moved to drop both the remaining election case and the documents appeal, given the lack of precedent to prosecute a sitting president and a Supreme Court ruling that Trump was entitled to broad immunity for acts he took in office.
Since then, in keeping with Justice Department tradition, Smith has largely shunned the spotlight and refrained from speaking about the prosecutions, despite continued GOP criticism of his work.
In August, the Office of the Special Counsel launched an investigation into Smith on allegations that he violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity.
In the face of the congressional and special counsel investigations, Smith has grown more vocal.
He sharply criticized the Trump administration’s regular attacks on judges and prosecutors who have ruled against it.
“I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us,” Smith said during a talk at the University College London Faculty of Laws earlier this month.
He has called allegations that his prosecutions were influenced by partisanship “ludicrous.”
