Jack Smith to Testify Before House Judiciary Committee
Next week, former special counsel Jack Smith is set to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. He’ll face questions from both Republican and Democratic members concerning the prosecution of President Donald Trump.
Previously, Smith indicted Trump for allegedly possessing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots. However, both cases were dropped after Trump won the 2024 presidential election over former Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to reports, Smith’s testimony is scheduled for January 22, following an eight-hour private deposition where he discussed his work as special counsel with the committee.
During the upcoming hearing, committee members will have five minutes each to query Smith, though in the previous deposition, each party had an hour to question him.
In his affidavit, Smith asserted that his decisions in prosecuting Trump were not influenced by political affiliation.
“I made decisions in this investigation without regard to President Trump’s political affiliations or his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election,” he explained, emphasizing that actions were based on facts and legal requirements—something he notes he learned early in his prosecutorial career.
Reports from November indicated that, during his probe into the January 6 events, Smith received former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s phone records from AT&T. Initially, it was stated that Smith had subpoenaed AT&T on McCarthy’s behalf; however, AT&T later informed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley that it had not shared any records regarding McCarthy.
Subsequently, AT&T provided a letter confirming that the records had indeed been shared with Smith.
On January 24, 2023, Smith reportedly requested “personal cell phone call records of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (AT&T) and U.S. Congressman Louis Gohmert (Verizon).”
This detail was part of a “Critical Incident Notice” drafted by the FBI’s Division of Criminal Investigation in May.
AT&T clarified that it had received a separate subpoena for McCarthy’s records in January, suggesting it may have inadvertently provided the personal records to Smith.
The company mentioned that the subpoena “sought records of individual cell phone numbers” without indicating any connection to congressional members.
“Yesterday, we identified (the subpoena) based on the phone number specified,” AT&T stated. “Upon discovering this record, we felt it necessary to clarify our earlier response, which was based on the available information at the time.”
Smith, in his deposition, mentioned adhering to the Justice Department’s policies regarding the subpoenaing of phone records.
He pointed out that if Trump had called for a significant number of Democratic senators to delay the election certification, similar records could have been acquired for them. Therefore, he asserted that the responsibility for the collection of these records lies with Trump.
