‘I will not be intimidated’: Former special counsel Jack Smith defends Trump investigation

WASHINGTON- Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his findings that President Trump “willfully broke the law” in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, telling lawmakers that Republican efforts to discredit the investigation are “false and misleading.”

“No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that [Trump] be held responsible. So that’s what I did,” Smith said during an often heated five-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Smith appeared at the request of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who accused him of conducting a politically motivated investigation and “muzzling a candidate for high office.”

“It was always about politics and to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything,” Jordan said.

Jordan called the investigations into the Jan. 6 insurrection “staged and choreographed” and said Smith would have “burned a hole in the 1st Amendment” if his accusations against Trump had been allowed to proceed.

Trump has repeatedly called for Smith to be prosecuted in the investigation, demanding that he be disbarred and suggesting that Atty. General Pam Bondi reviews his conduct.

“I believe they will do everything in their power to [indict me] because the president ordered them to do so,” Smith said during the hearing.

Smith’s 2023 investigation found that after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, Trump waged a months-long disinformation campaign to discredit the results, as evidenced by audio of a call in which he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”

Trump’s attempt to sow electoral discord culminated in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, Smith said. The president ordered the rioters to halt the certification of the election results, he added.

In closed-door testimony before the committee last month, Smith said the Justice Department had built a strong evidence base of Trump’s criminal plans to overturn the election.

Another case alleged the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after the loss.

Trump was indicted in the documents case in June 2023 and then with allegations of election conspiracy and fraud. Both cases were dropped after he won the 2024 election on the basis of presidential immunity.

In his opening remarks, Smith reiterated his findings.

“President Trump was indicted because the evidence established that he deliberately broke the law, the very laws he was sworn to uphold,” he said. “Rather than accept his defeat, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the legal transfer of power. »

Republicans claimed that the Justice Department’s subpoenas for the phone records were an abuse of prosecutorial power and constituted surveillance of top government officials.

Smith responded that obtaining such data was “commonplace” in conspiracy investigations and that the recordings showed the dates and times of calls – not the content – encompassing the days around January 6, 2021.

Jordan questioned the special counsel’s judgment in selecting personnel, which included the Justice Department investigators who probed the Trump campaign over alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years – a decade – and we should never forget what they did,” he said.

Smith, who has since left the Justice Department to open a private practice with his former deputies, was quick to defend the integrity of his team, adding that Trump has since sought revenge on career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff for their involvement in the cases.

“These dedicated public servants are the best among us,” he said. “My fear is that the rule of law has existed in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. »

The hearing steadily devolved into disputes between party adversaries, with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) filing scathing accusations against Smith, clashing with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) over procedure and ceding his time “out of disgust” with the witness.

Republican committee members attempted to pierce Smith’s conclusions about the events of January 6. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) accused Republicans on the committee of trying to “rewrite the history” of January 6.

Midway through the hearing, Trump called Smith a “deranged animal” in a Truth Social article in which he once again suggested his Justice Department investigate the former special counsel.

“I’m not going to be intimidated,” Smith said. “We followed the facts and the law. This process resulted in it being proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed serious crimes. I’m not going to pretend this didn’t happen because he threatened me.”

The hearing came as Trump continues to repeat false claims that he won in 2020.

“It was a rigged election. Everyone knows that now. And by the way, numbers are coming out that show it even more clearly,” Trump said Tuesday during a White House press briefing.

In a speech to an international audience in Davos, Switzerland, the next day, he said that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they have done.”