On Wednesday, December 17, 2025, former special counsel Jack Smith arrives at the Rayburn Building for a closed-door deposition with members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the prosecution of President Donald Trump.
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Jack Smith, the former U.S. Department of Justice special counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against President Donald Trump, defended his investigation before a House committee Wednesday. Smith told lawmakers that the basis for the charges is “entirely about President Trump and his actions.”
Smith’s private testimony before the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee follows months of revelations by Trump appointees at the Justice Department and Republican lawmakers aimed at discrediting Smith’s investigation and strengthening Trump’s case that the incident was an abuse of the legal system. Smith and his team secured an indictment in 2023 accusing President Trump of illegally preserving classified documents after his first term and plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, citing a Justice Department policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents.
“If you asked me today if I would prosecute a former president based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or a Democrat,” Smith told the committee, according to excerpts of his opening statement obtained by Reuters.
His appearance at the Capitol came after Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, subpoenaed Smith for a private deposition. Mr. Smith requested a public hearing.
Republican lawmakers expressed anger over revelations that investigators sought information from a wide range of conservative groups as part of their investigation into President Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat, and also obtained limited cell phone data from eight Republican senators in the period before and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
Trump allies point to the revelations as evidence that Smith’s investigation was overzealous and targeted political opponents.
Smith said prosecutors follow Justice Department policy and are not influenced by politics. He told lawmakers in his opening statement that the records were “relevant to completing a comprehensive investigation.”
“President Trump and his allies called members of Congress to further their criminal agenda, urging them to further delay the certification of the 2020 election,” Smith said. “I didn’t choose that senator, President Trump did.”
