Jack Smith to Testify at Public Hearing01/22 06:08

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican lawmakers are poised to grill former Justice 
Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday at a congressional hearing 
that's expected to focus fresh attention on two criminal investigations that 
shadowed Donald Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.

   Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returns to the House 
Judiciary Committee for a public hearing likely to divide along starkly 
partisan lines between Republican lawmakers looking to undermine the former 
Justice Department official and Democrats hoping to elicit new and damaging 
testimony about Trump's conduct.

   Smith will tell lawmakers that he stands behind his decision as special 
counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases accusing the 
Republican of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he 
lost to Democrat Joe Biden and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago 
estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

   "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President 
Trump engaged in criminal activity," Smith will say, according to a copy of his 
opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. "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 Republican or a Democrat."

   "No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that he 
be held to account. So that is what I did," Smith will say.

   The hearing is unfolding against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump 
administration retribution campaign targeting the investigators who scrutinized 
the Republican president. The Justice Department has fired lawyers and other 
employees who worked with Smith, and an independent watchdog agency responsible 
for enforcing a law against partisan political activity by federal employees 
said last summer that it had opened an investigation into him.

   "In my opinion, these people are the best of public servants, our country 
owes them a debt of gratitude, and we are all less safe because many of these 
experienced and dedicated law enforcement professionals have been fired," Smith 
said of the terminated members of his team.

   Smith was appointed in 2022 by Biden's Justice Department to oversee 
investigations into Trump. Both investigations produced indictments against 
Trump, but the cases were abandoned by Smith and his team after Trump won back 
the White House because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that 
say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.

   The hearing will be led by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chairman 
of the House Judiciary Committee, who told reporters on Wednesday that he 
regards Smith's investigations as the "culmination of that whole effort to stop 
President Trump from getting to the White House."

   "Tomorrow he'll be there in a public setting so the country can see that 
this was no different than all the other lawfare weaponization of government 
going after President Trump," Jordan said, advancing a frequent talking point 
from Trump, who pleaded not guilty in both cases and denied wrongdoing.

   At the private deposition last month, Smith vigorously rejected Republican 
suggestions that his investigation was motivated by politics or was meant to 
derail Trump's presidential candidacy. He said the evidence placed Trump's 
actions squarely at the heart of a criminal conspiracy to undo the election he 
lost to Biden as well as the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters at 
the U.S. Capitol.

   "The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure 
the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy," Smith said. 
"These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the 
Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other 
co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit."

   Smith is also expected to face questions about his team's analysis of phone 
records belonging to more than half a dozen Republican members of Congress who 
were in touch with the president on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021. The records 
contained data about the participants on the calls and how long they lasted but 
not their contents.

   It is unlikely that Smith will share new information Thursday about his 
classified documents investigation. A report his team prepared on its findings 
remains sealed by order of a Trump-appointed judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, 
and Trump's lawyers this week asked the court to permanently block its release.