Jack Smith defends Trump prosecutions during contentious hearing

by · UPI

Jan. 22 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump broke federal laws and rightfully was prosecuted, former Special Counsel Jack Smith said while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

The committee held a public hearing to ensure transparency in the matter, so that the general public is better informed of the prior efforts to prosecute Trump for organizing a protest against the 2020 election that turned into a riot at the Capitol and over his handling of classified documents.

Committee chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, accused Smith of politicizing the Justice Department and using statements that he knew were false to press legal claims against Trump.

"It was always about politics and to get President Trump," Jordan said of the Biden administration. "They were willing to do almost anything."

Related

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., accused Smith of targeting Trump and others because they were President Joe Biden's and Vice President Kamala Harris' "political enemies."

"They were the enemy of the president," Issa said. "And you were their arm, weren't you?"

Smith denied engaging in politicized lawfare against the president and instead said Trump knowingly violated federal laws when organizing the protest that devolved into a riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

The president "willfully broke the very laws that he took an oath to uphold," Smith said.

"If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat," he told the committee.

Smith said he is "not a politician" and that he has "no partisan loyalties."

He also denied accusations of spying on lawmakers and others when committee members raised the matter of Smith secretly examining the phone records of nine Republican senators while investigating the Capitol riot that began as a protest against the 2020 election.

Smith told the committee that the phone records were germane to the investigation and defended a $20,000 payment made to a confidential source.

Some Republican committee members suggested the payment was an improper use of taxpayer dollars, but Smith said the payment was for a source that reviewed photographic and video evidence of the event.

"No one should be above the law in our country," he told the committee. "The law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did."

Smith said the only regret he had about the dual prosecutions was that he did not do more to express his appreciation for the staff that assisted him at the time.

His investigative team collected enough evidence to support his charges against Trump, Smith said, adding that the president "was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy."

Some Democratic Party members of the committee expressed their support for Smith and his efforts to investigate and prosecute Trump.

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called Smith one of the country's "great prosecutors," and some of the committee's other Democrats told Smith that they agreed that Trump had broken federal laws.

While Smith's testimony was underway, the president on social media called him a "deranged animal" who should not be allowed to practice law

"Deranged Jack Smith is being decimated before Congress," Trump said. "It was over when they discussed his past failures and unfair prosecutions."

He accused Smith of destroying "many lives under the guise of legitimacy" and said his law license would have been revoked and "far worse" would have been done if he were a Republican.

"Hopefully, the attorney general is looking at what he's done, including some of the corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use against me," the president continued.

"The whole thing was a Democrat scam," he added. "A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our country through!"

When committee members informed Smith of Trump's comments, he declined to respond to them and instead said that he expected the Justice Department to punish him in some way.

Smith largely declined to answer questions regarding a separate case against Trump over the president's handling of classified documents.

He said an ongoing court case on the matter prevents him from discussing it.

Smith earlier testified before the committee for eight hours on Dec. 17, which the committee later made public, along with a 255-page transcript of his testimony.

Smith secured two indictments against Trump in 2023. One accused Trump of keeping classified documents after his first term, and the other accused him of plotting to overthrow the 2020 election.

He dropped both cases after Trump won in 2024 because the Justice Department has a policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump denied any wrongdoing and has called the indictments "witch hunts" and repeatedly has called for the prosecution of Smith since he took office last year.