Former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith to publicly testify in House Judiciary hearing
By Ellis Kim, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, CNN
(CNN) — Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led two failed prosecutions of President Donald Trump, will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee on January 22, the panel announced Monday.
Smith, who investigated Trump for his role in the effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election results and his handling of classified documents, appeared for a closed-door deposition in December where he defended his criminal investigation into Trump.
CNN previously reported that Smith has been pushing to speak publicly.
The Judiciary Committee released transcript and video of the more than eight-hour-long, closed-door hearing on December 31. Giving testimony was a significant risk for Smith as Trump has called for him to be prosecuted.
Smith told the committee in December, “The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for nine of those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the 10 indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts.”
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, subpoenaed Smith in October to testify privately, accusing him of running a “partisan and politically motivated” probe of Trump and conducting “abusive surveillance” of lawmakers, among other things.
Smith, a longtime public corruption prosecutor, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to oversee the investigations after Trump announced he was running for president again.
He brought criminal charges against Trump in 2023. The former president pleaded not guilty in both cases and neither went to trial. The case on mishandling classified documents ended with District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, declaring that his appointment was unlawful. The 2020 election and January 6 case was hamstrung by a landmark Supreme Court decision and dropped after Trump was re-elected.
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