At House hearing, Jack Smith defends decisions to charge Trump

Ryan Tarinelli, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 22, 2026

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WASHINGTON — John L. “Jack” Smith delivered a full-throated defense of his investigation into President Donald Trump on Thursday, telling the House Judiciary Committee he stands by his decisions as special counsel and “took actions based on the facts and the law.”

Smith, testifying publicly for the first time about investigations that led to two criminal cases against Trump, pushed back against long-standing Republican criticisms that his work was driven by partisan politics.

Smith said he was not a politician, has no partisan loyalties and had served as a career prosecutor in Republican and Democratic administrations.

“I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold.”

Smith’s special counsel office brought two criminal cases against Trump, one in Washington tied to Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and another in Florida that accused Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after his first term.

Smith also used the platform Thursday to outline the findings of his investigation.

Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election rather than accept defeat, he told the committee. And Trump, after leaving office in 2021, also illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to hide the retention of those documents, Smith said.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity,” Smith said. “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 Democrat or a Republican.”

“No one, no one should be above the law in this country and the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did,” Smith said.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly criticized the way Smith handled the cases, particularly his efforts to collect certain phone records from Republican senators.

Smith also said Trump has sought to “seek revenge” against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff simply for having worked on special counsel cases.

“To vilify and seek retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the best of us,” Smith said.