Jack Smith Testimony: Trump Engaged in Criminal Activity

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday testified that President Donald Trump "engaged in criminal activity" following his loss in the 2020 general election. 

Smith's comments came at a congressional hearing that's expected to focus fresh attention on two criminal investigations that shadowed Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.

"President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned," Smith said in his opening statement.

He added, "Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power."

However, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, accused Smith in his opening statement of abandoning proper procedure as part of a broader effort to block Trump from winning the White House in 2024.

“Now, why would Jack Smith do that? Why would he abandon proper procedure? Why would he ignore court rules? Because he's running out of time. There's an election around the corner. It's coming in 33 days and he's got to get President Trump. He's got to stop President Trump from running and tie him up in court. It was always about politics,” Jordan said.

Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returns to the House Judiciary Committee 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.

Smith told 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.

“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," Smith's statement went on.

"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 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.

The hearing is led by Jordan, who told reporters on Wednesday that he regards Smith's investigations as the “culmination of that whole effort to stop President Trump from getting to the White House.”

“Tomorrow he’ll be there in a public setting so the country can see that this was no different than all the other lawfare weaponization of government going after President Trump,” Jordan said, advancing a frequent talking point from Trump, who pleaded not guilty in both cases and denied wrongdoing.

At the private deposition last month, Smith vigorously rejected Republican suggestions that his investigation was motivated by politics or was meant to derail Trump's presidential candidacy.

He 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, protests at the U.S. Capitol.

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.