Special Counsel Jack Smith defends Trump prosecutions in public hearing

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith defended his decision to prosecute then-former President Donald Trump for his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents and alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 

Smith arrived on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on his role as a Justice Department Special Counsel and his cases against Trump. 

"As I testify before the Committee today, I want to be clear: I stand by my decisions as Special Counsel, including my decision to bring charges against President Trump," Smith said in his opening statement. "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. 

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," Smith continued. 

Smith made this defense in defiance of House Republicans, who assert Smith was primarily motivated by politics in his prosecution of the former president and Republican presidential candidate. 

“It was always about politics and to get President Trump. They were willing to do just about anything,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said in his opening statement. 

Smith has also come under fire from Republicans after revelations that his prosecutors subpoenaed phone records of U.S. senators, House members, and hundreds of others in President Trump's orbit. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, whose own phone records were seized, said that the probe was "indiscriminate" and a "fishing expedition." 

“Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition,” Grassley said during a Wednesday press conference, contending that “if this happened to the Democrats, they’d be as rightly outraged as we are.”