Former special counsel Jack Smith defended his investigations into former President Donald Trump during a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, responding to repeated Republican criticism of his prosecutorial conduct. The hearing, held amid ongoing partisan divisions, focused on criminal cases linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and the handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Both cases were dropped following Trump’s victory in the 2024 election.
Smith emphatically rejected Republican accusations that the investigations were politically motivated, emphasizing his commitment to impartiality throughout his career. “Anybody who has worked with me and knows me during the course of my career knows that I would not let politics play a role,” Smith said, adding that his team shared the same dedication to nonpartisanship.
During his testimony, Smith also highlighted what he described as an unprecedented attack on the rule of law by the Trump administration, including the dismissal of prosecutors involved in the investigations. He warned that these actions deprived the government of critical expertise and undermined national security. “That has never happened in my career. I have never seen anything remotely like it in any Republican or Democratic administration,” he remarked.
Republican senators criticized Smith vigorously throughout the hearing, using sharply critical language and asserting that the investigations served as partisan attacks against Trump. Senator Eric Schmitt intensified the partisan tone by accusing Smith of perjury over a dispute related to his attendance at a basketball game—an allegation rooted in confusion over a team name.
A central point of contention was Smith’s use of subpoenas for phone records belonging to Republican lawmakers as part of his inquiry into Trump’s post-election efforts. Prosecutors sought toll records for several GOP members of Congress who had been contacted by Trump or his associates on January 6, 2021—the day of the Capitol riot. Smith defended the subpoenas as routine and necessary for assessing the “scope of the conspiracy” between Trump and his allies.
“These subpoenas provided corroborating evidence that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators sought to exploit the violence of the day by invoking it to try to further delay the congressional certification of Biden’s win,” Smith explained. He stressed that while toll records reveal the timing and duration of calls, they do not disclose the content of communications.
Democratic lawmakers strongly supported Smith, underscoring the legal grounds for the investigations and criticizing the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine prosecutorial independence. The hearing illustrated the deep partisan divide surrounding the federal cases once pursued against Trump and his associates, with little indication of a bipartisan resolution.