Former US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who unsuccessfully prosecuted President Donald Trump, appeared before a House of Representatives panel for his public testimony where he said he stood by his decision to bring charges against the president https://t.co/5nhqEU1fw3 pic.twitter.com/rCu2NrTh8q
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 22, 2026
In a historic and contentious public hearing before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, former special counsel Jack Smith testified Thursday that his investigations conclusively found president Donald Trump broke the law, marking Smith’s first public accounting of the probes that led to criminal charges. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said, detailing how Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results” of the 2020 election and “illegally kept classified documents” at Mar-a-Lago while obstructing justice. He framed his decisions as strictly non-partisan, stating, “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,” and emphasized that “no one should be above the law in this country.”
The hearing revealed deep partisan divides, as Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) blasted Smith for leading what he called a “partisan investigation,” while ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) praised Smith for pursuing the facts. Smith also criticized retaliation against investigators, warning, “The rule of law is not self-executing,” and defended his closed-door testimony from last month, where he repeatedly denied allegations of political pressure from the Biden administration. The testimony followed the dismissal of the charges against Trump upon his reelection due to the Justice Department’s policy against prosecuting a sitting president, and Smith’s appearance complied with a judicial order restricting discussion of the classified documents case.