WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers are grilling former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith at a congressional hearing that's expected to focus fresh attention on two criminal investigations that shadowed Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.
Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returned to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday for a public hearing likely to divide along starkly partisan lines between Republican
lawmakers looking to undermine the former Justice Department official and Democrats hoping to elicit new and damaging testimony about Trump's conduct.
“It was always about politics,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
“Maybe for them,” retorted Rep. Jamie Raskin, the panel's top Democrat, during his on opening statement. “But for us, it's all about the rule of law.”
Smith will tell lawmakers that he stands behind his decision as special counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases accusing the Republican of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity,” 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."
"No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” he said.
The hearing is unfolding against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump administration retribution campaign targeting the investigators who scrutinized the Republican president. The Justice Department has fired lawyers and other employees who worked with Smith, and an independent watchdog agency responsible for enforcing a law against partisan political activity by federal employees said last summer that it had opened an investigation into him.
“In my opinion, these people are the best of public servants, our country owes them a debt of gratitude, and we are all less safe because many of these experienced and dedicated law enforcement professionals have been fired,” Smith said of the terminated members of his team.
Smith was appointed in 2022 by Biden's Justice Department to oversee investigations into Trump. Both investigations produced indictments against Trump, but the cases were abandoned by Smith and his team after Trump won back the White House because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
Smith was summoned to the hearing by Jordan, who on Thursday advanced a talking point frequently advanced by Trump that the investigation was driven by a desire to derail Trump's candidacy.
“We the people saw through it all,” Jordan said.
Smith vigorously rejected those suggestions and said the evidence placed Trump's actions squarely at the heart of a criminal conspiracy to undo the election he lost to Biden as well as the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
“During my tenure as Special Counsel, we followed Justice Department policies, observed legal requirements and took actions based on the fact and the law.,” he said.
“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith said. “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit.”
Smith is also expected to face questions about his team’s analysis of phone records belonging to more than half a dozen Republican members of Congress who were in touch with the president on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021. The records contained data about the participants on the calls and how long they lasted but not their contents.
It is unlikely that Smith will share new information Thursday about his classified documents investigation. A report his team prepared on its findings remains sealed by order of a Trump-appointed judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, and Trump's lawyers this week asked the court to permanently block its release.
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