Republicans want Jack Smith to testify about his investigations into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Now, the former special counsel is calling their bluff: he says he wants to do it in front of the public.
In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley on Thursday, Smith’s legal team requested that their client be given the opportunity to testify publicly to refute the “many mischaracterizations” of his investigations.
Smith’s lawyers also requested DOJ guidance on what exactly their client would be allowed to discuss, as well as access to the special counsel’s files.
“With the guidance and access described above, Mr. Smith is available to testify in an open hearing at your earliest convenience,” they wrote.
Last week, Jordan demanded that Smith appear in a closed-door session to discuss his investigations. Specifically, Jordan was incensed by a revelation that Smith had requested Senate Republicans’ phone records from the days before and after the deadly January 6 riot, in order to see who may have been involved in Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the election. Trump earned himself four felony counts for those alleged efforts. Those charges were dismissed after he was elected to the White House in 2024.
“As the Committee continues its oversight, your testimony is necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement,” Jordan wrote.
Speaking on CNN Thursday as a senior law enforcement analyst, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe said it was a great idea for Smith to go public. “I think it’s important that he’s speaking up in a way to kind of demystify what has been grossly misrepresented to the American people by the senators,” he said.
McCabe also explained that the kind of telephone records Smith had requested were run-of-the-mill investigative practice, and that it would have been conducted under the purview of a grand jury subpoena.
“This is not something that a prosecutor, an FBI agent, just dream up off the top of their heads and, you know, call up the phone company and say, ‘Hey, send us everything you have.’ There is a process. These records are accessed lawfully under the purview of the grand jury,” he said, adding that the request had been “grossly misrepresented” by Republicans.
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