Jack Smith defends Trump probes in Senate hearing filled with GOP insults

WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two since-dismissed federal criminal cases against Donald Trump, told senators Tuesday that he would not be silenced “by continued threats of prosecution” over his handling of the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee amid the Justice Department’s push to target law enforcement officials involved with his investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, as well as the probe into his handling of classified documents after he left office in January 2021. Smith said in his opening statement that he stood by his decision to bring charges against Trump, that it was the result of a deep investigation that uncovered substantive evidence. “The status, power, prominence, or political affiliation of the subject of an investigation must play no role in the decision to investigate, prosecute, or decline to prosecute,” he said. “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” he said. Trump has said he did nothing wrong. The hearing quickly devolved into insults by Republicans. Louisiana Republican John Kennedy began his questioning by asking Smith: “What does the word arrogant mean?” And he ended his time by telling Smith: “You make me want to throw up in my mouth.” Later, Missouri Republican Eric Schmitt called Smith a “dirtbag.” It came right after Schmitt tried to imply that the former special counsel had been in communication with Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County who was at the time working on a state case against Trump. Schmitt tried to place Smith in Atlanta at a Hawks game. When Smith denied it, Schmitt suggested he’d committed perjury. But Schmitt appeared to have confused his basketball teams: Smith had actually been in attendance at an Iowa Hawkeyes game, which was Caitlin Clark’s team at the time. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Schmitt owed Smith an apology. He didn’t give it. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has repeatedly criticized Smith. Grassley asserted that Smith misused his investigative powers and politically targeted Republicans. Smith, who as a career prosecutor went after Republicans and Democrats, has denied such allegations. Grassley said that Smith must answer for what the senator portrays as “rampant abuse of authority and political targeting” funded by American taxpayers. He said his goal is to expose the “weaponization” of the Justice Department for actions taken during the Biden administration. “Jack Smith’s corrupt operation undermined the rule of law and threatened our very political institutions,” he said Tuesday. Smith has said he believes a jury would have convicted Trump in the 2020 election-related case had it gone to trial and that the notion that his decisions were “influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable.” Smith’s final report in the election interference case stated that Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump pleaded not guilty in Smith’s Jan. 6 case and denied after the attack that he incited his supporters, calling his remarks at a rally that day “totally appropriate.” Trump later described Jan. 6 defendants as “hostages” and gave them mass clemency upon his return to office. The Trump administration last year launched a so-called grand conspiracy investigation looking at actions taken by federal law enforcement officials dating back to 2016, which would fall outside the typical five-year statute of limitations for most federal crimes. The Trump administration also has purged FBI and Justice Department officials involved in past Trump investigations. Defense attorneys for current and former officials informed a court last week that DOJ officials appear interested in probing the circumstances of an August 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, during which agents found classified documents that were at the heart of one of the since-dismissed Trump cases. Joe diGenova, who was a federal prosecutor during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, headed up the “grand conspiracy” investigation until he left the Justice Department this month. He told NBC News that “lanes got crossed” in his final days. Sen. Corey Booker, D-N.J., said the law enforcement who worked diligently on the cases were fired for doing their jobs, then vilified and harassed by Trump and his allies who are still “pushing false narratives that somehow Donald Trump is the victim.” “This is an eight-year attempt to lie to the American people, and this is their closing argument, everybody, right before an election, this is what they want to spend their time on: perpetrating a lie,” Booker said. In his first public testimony before Congress earlier this year, Smith told the House Judiciary Committee that he would not be intimidated and predicted that the Trump administration would attempt to launch a criminal case against him. Months later, one of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked the Trump administration to investigate Jordan’s assertion that Smith “seemingly” made false statements in congressional testimony. Smith’s lawyers said he provided “truthful, responsive answers” and that Jordan’s referral “reflects a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career, nonpartisan public servant who faithfully and fearlessly performed his duties by following the facts and the law.” Former federal prosecutors have told NBC News that the Justice Department would have a tough time bringing a perjury case against Smith. Smith didn’t discuss the classified documents investigation because Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered that that portion of his report as special counsel cannot be released. The Justice Department has taken the position that answering questions about that investigation would violate Cannon’s order.