{"id":194028,"date":"2025-12-18T10:56:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/former-trump-prosecutor-jack-smith-defends-investigation-in-house-testimony-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T10:56:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:56:23","slug":"former-trump-prosecutor-jack-smith-defends-investigation-in-house-testimony-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/former-trump-prosecutor-jack-smith-defends-investigation-in-house-testimony-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith defends investigation in House testimony – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-special counsel tells House panel US president\u2019s actions alone underpinned now-dropped prosecutions
Jack Smith, the former US justice department special counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against Donald Trump<\/a>, has defended his investigation before a House of Representatives panel, telling lawmakers that the basis for the prosecutions \u201crests entirely with President Trump and his actions\u201d.
Smith gave private testimony to the Republican-controlled House judiciary committee following months of disclosures from Trump appointees at the justice department, and Republican lawmakers intended to discredit Smith\u2019s investigation and bolster Trump\u2019s claims that the cases were an abuse of the legal system.
Smith and his team secured indictments in 2023, accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents following his first term in office and plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a justice department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
\u201cIf asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat,\u201d Smith told the committee, according to excerpts from his opening statement seen by Reuters.
His appearance at the Capitol came after the Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, Jim Jordan of Ohio, subpoenaed Smith for a closed-door deposition. Smith had requested a public hearing.
\u201cThis was political. This was about going after the Republican party and most importantly it was about going after our candidate for president, President Trump,\u201d Jordan told Fox News\u2019s Fox and Friends.
Speaking to reporters outside the interview room, Democratic lawmakers said Smith\u2019s testimony should have been conducted in public. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the panel\u2019s top Democrat, said a public hearing would have been \u201cabsolutely devastating to the president\u201d.
\u201cHe\u2019s answered every single question to the satisfaction of any reasonable-minded person in that room,\u201d Raskin said.
Democratic depresentative, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said Smith told lawmakers that Trump\u2019s conduct in seeking to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, could have been \u201ccatastrophic\u201d for the US democracy.
Republican lawmakers have expressed outrage at disclosures from the justice department that investigators sought information from a wide range of conservative organizations as part of the investigation into Trump\u2019s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and also obtained limited cellphone data from eight Republican senators during the period around the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Trump allies have pointed to those disclosures as evidence that Smith\u2019s investigation was overzealous and targeted the political opposition.
Smith has said his prosecutors followed justice department policy and were not influenced by politics. He told lawmakers in his opening statement that the records were \u201crelevant to complete a comprehensive investigation\u201d.
\u201cPresident Trump and his associates tried to call members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI didn\u2019t choose those Members; President Trump did.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ex-special counsel tells House panel US president\u2019s actions alone underpinned now-dropped prosecutionsJack Smith, the former US justice department special counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against Donald Trump, has defended his investigation before a House of Representatives panel, telling lawmakers that the basis for the prosecutions \u201crests entirely with President Trump and his actions\u201d.Smith […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}