Important moments from Jack Smith’s testimony at home

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his investigations into Donald Trump at a public congressional hearing in which he insisted he acted without regard for politics and had no second thoughts about the criminal charges he brought.

He watches: Jack Smith testifies about Trump’s criminal investigation

Smith said of Trump: “No one should be above the law in our country, and the law requires that they be held accountable. And that is what I did.”

Smith testified behind closed doors last month, but returned to the House Judiciary Committee for a public hearing that provided the prosecutor with a forum to address Congress and the country at large about the scope of evidence he collected during the investigations that accompanied Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign and resulted in charges. The hours-long hearing immediately split along partisan lines as Republican lawmakers sought to undermine the former Justice Department official while Democrats tried to get damaging testimony about Trump’s behavior and accused their GOP counterparts of trying to rewrite history.

“It’s always been about politics,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s Republican chairman.

“Maybe for them,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, responded during his opening statement. “But for us, it’s all about the rule of law.”

The hearing was on Trump’s own mind as he returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the president posted on his Social Truth account that Smith was being “taken down by Congress” — a possible reference to the Republican attacks he faced. Trump said Smith “destroyed the lives of many under the guise of legality.”

Smith told lawmakers that he stands behind his decisions as special counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases in which the Republican was accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving the White House.

“Our investigation has found evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump is engaged in criminal activity,” Smith said. He added: “If I were asked whether I would 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.”

Republicans and Smith argue over phone records

From the beginning, Republicans sought to portray Smith as an overly aggressive prosecutor who should be “reined in” by senior officials and the courts during the investigation into Trump. They also seized on revelations that Smith’s team collected and analyzed the phone records of more than a half-dozen Republican lawmakers who were in contact with Trump on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of his 2020 election loss.

He watches: “I stand by” my decision to impeach Trump, Jack Smith said in his House testimony

The records revealed the length and time of the calls but not the content of the communications, but Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican from Texas, said the incident showed how Smith “walked all over the Constitution.”

“My office did not spy on anyone,” Smith said, explaining that collecting phone records is a common prosecution tactic and necessary in this case to help prosecutors understand the scope of the conspiracy.

Smith describes a large-scale conspiracy set in 2020

During questioning, Smith described what he said was a widespread conspiracy to overturn the results of the election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, and alleged how the Republican refused to listen to advisers who told him the contest was in fact not stolen. Smith said that after he was charged, Trump tried to silence and intimidate witnesses.

Smith said one reason he feels confident in the strength of the case prosecutors are preparing to bring to trial is how much it relies on Republican supporters of Trump.

He watches: Jack Smith explains why Trump is the only defendant charged in the January 6 case

“Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who were actually fellow Republicans who voted for Donald Trump, campaigned for him and wanted him to win the election,” Smith said.

The hearing took place against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump administration retaliation campaign targeting investigators who examined the Republican president and amid growing concern about the erosion of the Justice Department’s institutional independence under the president’s control.

Noting these concerns, Smith said: “I think if we don’t hold people accountable when they commit crimes in this context, it can jeopardize our election process, it can jeopardize election workers and, ultimately, our democracy.”

Smith was appointed in 2022 by the Justice Department under Biden to oversee investigations into Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing. Both investigations resulted in indictments against Trump, but Smith and his team abandoned both cases after Trump regained the White House due to long-standing Justice Department legal opinions that held that sitting presidents could not be indicted.

The GOP says Smith wanted to destroy Trump’s bid for the White House

For their part, Republicans repeatedly denounced Smith, with Rep. Kevin Kelly of California accusing him of seeking “maximum judicial advantages at every turn” and “circumventing constitutional constraints to the point where you had to be repeatedly restrained throughout the process.”

Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Ben Kline of Virginia, challenged Smith about his efforts to stop Trump from making inflammatory comments about witnesses. Smith said the order was necessary because of Trump’s efforts to intimidate witnesses, but Klein emphasized that it was intended to silence Trump in the midst of the presidential campaign.

Jordan, the committee chairman, repeatedly made the point in Trump’s speech that the investigation was motivated by a desire to derail Trump’s nomination.

“We must never forget what happened and what they did to the man whom the people elected twice,” Jordan said.

Smith strongly rejected those suggestions and said the evidence places Trump’s actions squarely at the center of a criminal conspiracy to undo the 2020 election.

“The evidence here makes clear that President Trump was by far the culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy,” Smith said. “These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack at the Capitol, which is part of this case, would not have happened without him. The other conspirators were doing it for his benefit.”

Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.