The former special counsel who twice indicted President Donald Trump, Jack Smith, is scheduled to face Senate Republicans on Tuesday morning.
Smith will appear as the sole witness at a 9 a.m. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters.” His appearance will mark his second time going before a Republican-controlled congressional committee following his appearance before the House’s counterpart in January.
“Jack Smith must answer for what he did to hundreds of Republican groups and individuals,” the committee’s Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said in a statement last week. “The records made public to-date show rampant abuse of authority and political targeting – all on the taxpayers’ dime. If Jack Smith did that to Democrats, you’d never hear the end of it. I look forward to achieving some accountability on the part of the misguided Biden Justice Department.”
The hearing comes after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) referred Smith to the Justice Department in July over allegations that he misled Congress about investigators’ collection of lawmakers’ text messages. That referral has put the onus on a department led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously represented Trump. The DOJ has not indicated any status updates since receiving the referral.
Grassley has meanwhile worked more meticulously and has spearheaded disclosures about the election investigation known as Arctic Frost, including investigators’ acquisition of congressional telephone records. Republicans say the inquiry crossed constitutional boundaries and improperly targeted their party.
Smith and his defenders maintain that he followed the evidence in investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Notably, his appearance will offer Democrats another opportunity to draw attention to allegations that never reached trial, just weeks away from a consequential midterm election where Trump’s average approval rating stands at just roughly 37% — the lowest since regaining the Oval Office.
A central dispute likely to be on display at the hearing concerns the distinction between telephone toll records, which document calls without their contents, and lawmakers’ actual communications. Republican reports say investigators obtained text messages involving 44 lawmakers, including Democrats, while the full scope covered more than 100 individuals and Republican-linked groups, including Turning Point USA.
Jordan’s accusation centers on Smith’s December deposition. Asked whether he sought a search warrant for the contents of members’ text messages, Smith answered, “No, I don’t recall that.” He subsequently agreed that he had stopped short of searching texts. Jordan contends that records disclosed afterward contradict those answers.
Smith’s lawyer, Peter Koski, said Jordan’s latest report contains “mischaracterization of the facts and the law” and that the former special counsel “followed the normal DOJ process.”
Senators are also likely to examine whether the investigation infringed the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which protects legislative activity by members of Congress. Transcripts released by House Republicans show that prosecutors recognized the issue. One member of Smith’s team, Tad Dupree, said they were “hypervigilant and extremely aware of the contours” of that protection.
A separate line of questioning could arise from a new report published Monday in Breitbart about the office’s purchase of forensic video software.
Citing DOJ records obtained by the conservative watchdog Oversight Project through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Breitbart reported that staff urgently sought Axon software to convert video and audio files in the weeks before Trump’s August 2023 election indictment.
According to the report, an executive officer initially insisted on following internal purchasing procedures, then authorized the urgent purchase before an obligation was entered into the department’s financial system. The released paperwork raises questions about approvals, the exact cost for Axon’s services, and what material the software was intended to process.
Democrats have welcomed the chance to hear Smith’s defense. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the committee’s ranking Democrat, told Roll Call that the hearing offers an opportunity to answer accusations Republicans have circulated for months.
Smith told House lawmakers in January that his team had assembled evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump participated in a criminal scheme to overturn the election.
Trump denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, and was reelected in part on a campaign highlighting the “weaponization of justice” and “lawfare” he said his opponents waged to keep him from winning the election.
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY INVITES JACK SMITH TO TESTIFY BEFOER SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
The so-called election case, which alleged Trump played a role in attempting to subvert the certification of the 2020 election, was dismissed after his reelection under the DOJ’s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. The separate classified documents-related case stemming from the FBI’s August 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago had been dismissed separately by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who ruled that Smith’s appointment was unlawful.
Tuesday’s hearing will pit Republicans’ and Democrats’ competing accounts before the nation, with Smith preparing to defend his prosecutorial decisions against scrutiny that he deprived dozens of lawmakers and private individuals of their rights.