By Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Jack Smith, the former U.S. Justice Department special counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against President Donald Trump, will give a public testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on January 22. Smith will testify before the panel at 10 a.m. (1500 […]
Politics
Trump prosecutor Smith to give public testimony to congressional panel on January 22
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By Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil
WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Jack Smith, the former U.S. Justice Department special counsel who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against President Donald Trump, will give a public testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on January 22.
Smith will testify before the panel at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) on January 22, the panel’s chair, Republican U.S. Representative Jim Jordan said late on Monday. Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Smith had privately testified before the House committee in December, when he defended his investigation into Trump, telling lawmakers that the basis for the prosecutions “rests entirely with President Trump and his actions.”
His private testimony in December followed months of disclosures from Trump appointees at the Justice Department and Republican lawmakers intended to discredit Smith’s probe and bolster Trump’s claims that the cases were an abuse of the legal system.
On New Year’s Eve, the House panel released 255 pages of transcript from Smith’s mid-December testimony.
The transcript showed Smith to be saying that Trump acknowledged to others that he lost the 2020 election against former President Joe Biden.
Publicly, Trump falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election. His supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the Congress from certifying the results of that election. After taking office for a second time in January 2025, Trump pardoned the rioters.
Smith and his team secured indictments in 2023, accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents following his first term in office and plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
Smith has said his prosecutors followed Justice Department policy and were not influenced by politics. Trump and his allies have alleged political motivation.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Stephen Coates)