Former Special Counsel Jack Smith Asked to Testify in Congress Over Trump Cases

A letter sent by the House Judiciary chairman was sent after Smith ‘failed to respond’ to previous requests.

Former special counsel Jack Smith prepares to speak about an indictment against then-former President Donald Trump in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have demanded that former special counsel Jack Smith testify before the panel, after reports indicated that Smith’s investigation obtained phone records of sitting Republican lawmakers, according to a Tuesday letter.

As a special counsel, Smith investigated President Donald Trump over allegations arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach and for the alleged mishandling of classified documents that were the subject of an FBI raid on the president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in mid-2022.

In a letter sent to Smith, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote that Smith’s “testimony is necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement.”

Several members of Smith’s former team have already been called to testify in front of the Republican-led panel, Jordan said in the letter. However, the former officials did not “fully cooperate” and instead invoked the Fifth Amendment, which provides that individuals cannot be compelled to make self-incriminating statements, or declined to answer Republicans’ questions, Jordan wrote.

Jordan said he is requesting communications and documents that were obtained by Smith when he served as the special counsel.

“As the Special Counsel, you are ultimately responsible for the prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional abuses of your office. Your misdeeds were so flagrant that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed to the Committee in November 2024 that it had opened an inquiry into the tactics of your office,” Jordan wrote.

During previous attempts to contact Smith to request documents, the former special counsel “failed to respond,” Jordan said, adding the panel now needs Smith to testify in order to obtain a written transcript from him.

Before Trump took office in January, Smith resigned from the Department of Justice and sent a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland defending the decision to investigate and bring charges against the former president. He disputed allegations that the Biden administration had put pressure on his office to bring a case against Trump.

“It is equally important for me to make clear that nobody within the Department of Justice ever sought to interfere with, or improperly influence, my prosecutorial decision making,” he said in the Jan. 7, 2025, letter.

The attorney general and other top former Justice Department officials also never attempted to “improperly influence my decision as to whether to bring charges against Mr. Trump,” Smith said, adding that a “claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable.”

Smith also denied claims that his investigation was intended to impact the 2024 presidential election, and said the decision he made to retract the charges against Trump was not a sign that the president was innocent. Trump has long maintained that he did nothing wrong and that Smith’s investigation, along with two state cases brought against him, were politicized and designed to damage his reelection chances.

Last week, Smith told a panel discussion hosted by former FBI counsel and current New York University professor Andrew Weissman, which was uploaded onto YouTube on Tuesday, that the allegation that he acted in a politicized manner is false. Smith also said he gets “very concerned” about attempts to “demonize” career Justice Department officials “for political ends.”

The Epoch Times has contacted Smith’s counsel, Peter Koski, for comment.