Washington — Former special counsel Jack Smith is offering to testify in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees about the federal investigations into President Trump’s handling of sensitive documents and alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election, according to a letter from his lawyers to lawmakers.
In the letter obtained by CBS News, Smith’s lawyers said he is prepared to answer questions from Congress about the investigations he oversaw and prosecutions of Mr. Trump that stemmed from them, but said doing so “requires assurance from the Department of Justice that he will not be punished for doing so.”
Lawyers Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski said Smith needs guidance from the Justice Department about federal grand jury secrecy requirements and authorization as to the issues he can speak about, including the second volume of his final report, which he completed before leaving the role of special counsel. The first volume of Smith’s report pertains to the investigation that stemmed from alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and it was submitted to Congress in mid-January. But the second volume, which covers Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents after leaving the White House in 2021, has not been made public.
Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said in January that he would not release the second volume of Smith’s final report because a criminal case involving two of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants was ongoing. But after Mr. Trump returned to the White House for a second term, the case against the two, aide Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira, was tossed out.
Both cases against Mr. Trump arising from Smith’s investigations ended after he won the presidential election last November.
“Given the many mischaracterizations of Mr. Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Mr. Smith respectfully requests the opportunity to testify in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees,” Smith’s lawyers wrote in their letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Jim Jordan, who lead the Senate and House Judiciary panels.
They said that Smith “steadfastly adhered to established legal standards and Department of Justice guidelines, consistent with his approach throughout his career as a dedicated public servant,” while leading the investigations into Mr. Trump.
Smith and his team brought two criminal cases against the president in 2023. In the first, prosecutors alleged that Mr. Trump illegally held onto documents marked classified after the end of his first term in January 2021 and kept them at his South Florida property, Mar-a-Lago. He faced 40 counts in all and pleaded not guilty.
The second case involved his alleged efforts to hold onto power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden. Mr. Trump faced four charges and pleaded not guilty.
The president and his allies in Congress have long accused Smith of pursuing politically motivated cases against Mr. Trump in an effort to undermine his candidacy for a second term. Smith resigned from the Justice Department before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, but is the subject of investigations from congressional Republicans and the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that is unrelated to Smith’s former position of special counsel.
Smith’s lawyers called the ethics probe by the Office of the Special Counsel “imaginary and unfounded.”
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