Smith, the former Justice Department special counsel who led two major federal investigations involving Trump, appeared for a day-long, closed-door deposition Wednesday with the House Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers questioned him for hours about inquiries that produced criminal cases between Trump’s first and second White House terms. Portions of Smith’s opening statement obtained by The Associated Press included his assessment that prosecutors had developed “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” of a criminal conspiracy tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and his assertion that investigators had obtained “powerful evidence” tied to both the handling of classified records and attempts to impede recovery efforts.
Smith’s statement to committee members also addressed what he said were the conditions under which he made investigative decisions. He told lawmakers, “I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” and said, “We took actions based on what the facts and the law required — the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.”
Smith told the committee that prosecutors would have handled a hypothetical future case the same way, saying that if asked whether he would “prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat.” He also told lawmakers that his team’s work included a detailed review of evidence tied to both investigations that had been brought during the period when he was appointed as special counsel in 2022.
The deposition came as Republicans in Congress, backed by current FBI leadership, have pursued efforts to discredit the investigations by releasing emails and other documents that sometimes, according to the AP report, omit context. Smith’s testimony addressed one area of that dispute, including Republicans’ focus on revelations that his team had analyzed phone records for select GOP lawmakers during a period around the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the building.
According to AP’s account of Smith’s remarks, prosecutors reviewed phone records that included information about the incoming and outgoing phone numbers and the length of calls but did not include the contents of conversations. Smith told lawmakers the records were properly subpoenaed, were “relevant to complete a comprehensive investigation,” and were connected to calls Trump made urging lawmakers to delay certification of the election.
Smith’s deposition unfolded within a broader political and institutional backdrop that the AP said included what it described as a “retribution campaign” affecting former officials involved in investigating Trump and his allies. The AP report said the Office of Special Counsel stated in August that it was investigating Smith, and that a White House presidential memorandum this year aimed at suspending security clearances of lawyers at the law firm that provided legal services to him.
The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, told reporters after the session that he believed lawmakers learned “some interesting things,” but declined to discuss what was said in the room and reiterated his position about the investigations. A number of Democrats who emerged from the closed interview said they understood why Republicans did not want the hearing held publicly, pointing to what they described as damaging testimony about Trump.
Committee Democrats also used the deposition to press for disclosure. Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said, “The American people should hear for themselves,” and Democrats demanded that Smith’s testimony be made public as well as release of his full report on the investigation; AP said a volume on the classified documents investigation has not yet been released.
During the post-deposition remarks, the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, defended the Republicans’ choice to keep Smith’s testimony from being public. Raskin said the Republican majority made an “excellent decision” in not allowing Smith to testify publicly, arguing that an open hearing would have been “absolutely devastating to the president and all the president’s men involved in the insurrectionary activities” associated with the Jan. 6 riot.
Smith’s appearance followed his appointment in 2022 to oversee Justice Department investigations into Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden and Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. His team filed charges in both matters but later abandoned the cases after Trump was elected to the White House again, citing Justice Department legal opinions that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
Smith cooperated with the committee’s subpoena for testimony and documents, though his lawyers argued he had volunteered more than a month earlier to answer questions publicly before the committee and said Republicans rebuffed the overture. In comments to reporters, Smith’s lawyer Lanny Breuer said, “Testifying before this committee, Jack is showing tremendous courage in light of the remarkable and unprecedented retribution campaign against him by this administration and this White House,” and added, “Let’s be clear: Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, conducted this investigation based on the facts and based on the law and nothing more.”
The deposition also came after earlier activity involving Smith and past special counsels. Multiple special counsels, including Robert Mueller, have testified publicly, but Smith was summoned for a private interview.