What we're covering
• NOW: Jack Smith, the former special prosecutor who led two failed prosecutions against President Donald Trump, is publicly testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. Smith told lawmakers that he stands by his decisions and that as a prosecutor he had “no partisan loyalties.”
• Scrutiny over probes: Smith investigated Trump for his role in the efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results as well as the president’s handling of classified documents. Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan last October, accused Smith of running a “partisan and politically motivated” probe of Trump and conducting “abusive surveillance” of lawmakers, among other things.
•Phone records: When asked about obtaining phone records of Republican members of Congress during the course of his investigation, Smith said it was “common” to pull such information when investigating a conspiracy case. Republicans have slammed Smith for obtaining cellphone metadata during his probe, calling the move “political weaponization.”
Jack Smith defends gag order against President Trump in election subversion case
Jack Smith defended the gag order he obtained against President Trump in the election subversion case — an order that was mostly upheld by an appeals court — and he pushed back when a Republican lawmaker suggested that prosecutors lacked evidence that Trump’s conduct was hampering witness cooperation.”
The gag order barred Trump from making certain statements about witnesses, court staff, and staff on Smith’s team. An appeals court narrowed the order to allow Trump to speak out against Smith himself, a change Smith said he had no issue with.
“We had extremely thorough evidence that his statements were having a effect on the proceedings,” Smith said, while rejecting Rep. Ben Cline’s claims that the order was unjustified because prosecutors couldn’t point to specific witnesses who had been intimidated.
“Both courts upheld the orders, and it is not incumbent on a prosecutor to wait until someone gets killed before they move for an order to protect the proceedings,” Smith said.
The hearing has resumed
The hearing has started again after a short recess.
The hearing is on a short break
The hearing is taking a short recess – with GOP Chairman Jim Jordan saying it would last about five to ten minutes.
Democrat rips into GOP colleagues for not holding a hearing on DOJ's slow release of Epstein files instead
A Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee called out his Republican colleagues for choosing to hold a hearing on Jack Smith’s probes into President Donald Trump instead of an oversight hearing into the Justice Department’s slow release of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Republicans would rather talk about the criminality of Donald Trump in trying to steal an election and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and the criminality of Donald Trump in stealing classified documents and obstruction justice than about Donald Trump’s associations with Jeffrey Epstein and his pedophilia ring,” California Rep. Ted Lieu said during the hearing.
He continued: “I demand this committee, this chairman and Republicans, call an immediate hearing asking why the Department of Justice is refusing to release 99% of the Epstein files and why the DOJ is violating the law right now.”
DOJ said earlier this month that it has released less than 1% of its Epstein-related files, with more than 2 million documents still being reviewed. The release is pursuant to a law passed with bipartisan support in November that gave the department a December 19, 2025, deadline to release all of the files about Epstein.
Trump’s ties to Epstein are well known. The two were part of the same social circles in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. But Trump has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, and he and his team have previously derided Epstein as a “creep” whom Trump expelled from his club.
Jack Smith cites "vile death threats" to election workers to defend phone record non-disclosure orders
Jack Smith defended his decision to obtain non-disclosure orders that prevented lawmakers from learning that their phone records had been subpoenaed by pointing to how election workers had been targeted by President Trump and his alleged co-conspirators.
“I was aware, during the course of our investigation, of targeting of witnesses during the course of the conspiracy itself,” Smith said. “There were election workers who had their lives turned upside down and received vile death threats because they were targeted by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators.”
Republicans have seized on language in the non-disclosure order Smith obtained for his subpoena of then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s phone records that described risk of flight, destruction of evidence or witness tampering. A DOJ inspector general report that surveyed non-disclosure orders obtained in investigations launched by the first Trump administration noted that DOJ policy “permits prosecutors to make boilerplate statements in applications.”
Smith on Thursday said that the concerns driving the decision to obtain those order weren’t necessarily related to the holder of the phone records being sought, but were a reflection of the larger concerns about obstruction in the special counsel’s probes and concerns about the obstructive conduct of President Trump in particular.
“I had a duty to protect witnesses in this investigation. That risk, that threat to witnesses was only confirmed when we went forward in this case, and Donald Trump suggested that one witness should be put to death, and then also issued a statement to the effect of, if you come after me, I’m coming after you,” said Smith. “In my mind, I can’t think of a more direct threat to witnesses and individuals involved in that proceeding.”
Trump says he hopes his AG is 'looking at' Jack Smith's conduct as former special counsel testifies on Capitol Hill
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he hopes his attorney general is examining the conduct of former special counsel Jack Smith, as the prosecutor who brought two criminal cases against Trump testified on Capitol Hill.
While Smith described his work to the House Judiciary Committee, Trump lambasted the former special counsel and said Attorney General Pam Bondi should be examining his investigation and the witnesses who cooperated as a part of it.
“Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The whole thing was a Democrat SCAM — A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our Country through!”
Trump was also broadly critical of Smith’s work and his testimony.
“Deranged Jack Smith is being DECIMATED before Congress. It was over when they discussed his past failures and unfair prosecutions. He destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy,” Trump wrote, calling Smith an “animal” and adding that “he shouldn’t be allowed to practice Law.”
Republican lawmaker argues Trump was protected by free speech rights
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California argued during Thursday’s hearing that President Donald Trump’s belief “that he was cheated in an election” meant Trump’s actions and comments were protected under free speech rights.
“Do you see criminals to my left?” Issa asked former Special Counsel Jack Smith of the Democrats on the committee. “You don’t see any.”
Issa continued, telling Smith “these people here are continuing to grapple constantly with things that aren’t true, like socialism works.”
The congressman added the First Amendment meant “someone has the absolute right to believe something whether it’s true or not.”
“Why is it you saw criminal conduct on behalf of a president who believed he didn’t win?” Issa asked without waiting for a response from Smith.
In his final report, Smith addressed First Amendment arguments to his case against Trump in Washington, DC, writing that Trump “used those knowingly false statements regarding specific facts to commit the crimes charged.”
As such, Smith wrote, the false claims from Trump in his effort to overturn the 2020 election “were not protected by the First Amendment.”
Trump was charged with making false statements in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election, one that included fake electors and pressure campaigns to alter votes.
That case was dismissed following Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Issa, who would not allow Smith to answer his questions, continued by accusing Smith of spying on members of congress and calling Smith the “arm” of President Joe Biden.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes spotted on Capitol Hill during Smith testimony
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was seen on Capitol Hill on Thursday outside of the hearing room where former special counsel Jack Smith is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.
Rhodes was previously convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison for his actions related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
He was serving his time in prison when his sentence was commuted by President Trump in January 2025. It was one of the first actions taken by Trump when he resumed office.
Federal District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in January 2025 that Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers needed to seek court permission to travel to DC or be on Capitol Grounds.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Oath Keepers is an anti-government extremist organization within the militia movement, which believed the federal government was co-opted by a conspiracy trying to strip Americans of their rights.
Staffers bring pizza into the hearing room
As the hearing stretches into the afternoon, staffers brought in boxes of pizza from “We, The Pizza,” which has several locations in the Washington, DC, area, including DC’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
What are the "toll records" that lawmakers are asking Smith about?
Congressional Republicans have slammed former Special Counsel Jack Smith for obtaining cell phone metadata known as “toll records” of some lawmakers during his probe, calling the move “political weaponization.”
Toll records are phone records, but they are not wiretaps and don’t reveal the content of calls. They do reveal phone numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, the time of the calls, and the duration of the calls, among other things.
Here’s how Smith explained toll records during his closed-door deposition last month: “Toll records were sought for historical telephone routing information, collected after calls had taken place, identifying the incoming and outgoing call numbers, the time of the calls and their duration. Toll records do not include the content of calls. Those records were lawfully subpoenaed and were relevant to complete a comprehensive investigation.”
When asked about obtaining phone records of Republican members of Congress during the course of his investigation, Smith said it was “common” to pull such information when investigating a conspiracy case.
“The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith continued.
Later on during the hearing, when asked by a Democratic lawmaker about the matter, Smith said, “A toll record subpoena gives you who a call is from, who it is to and the length of that call, it does not tell you the content of what people are speaking about.”
GOP critics have claimed that Smith was involved in unconstitutional snooping on Congress. Smith said last month in his private deposition that this was a “false and misleading” narrative.
Who is the ex-Trump White House aide Smith is being asked about?
Republican Chairman Jim Jordan repeatedly pressed Jack Smith about Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide during President Donald Trump’s first term, who provided explosive testimony to lawmakers years ago about what unfolded after Trump’s 2020 election defeat.
Jordan and others have cast doubt on the veracity of Hutchinson’s claims, which included her recounting of a secondhand account of how Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, that he lunged to the front of his vehicle and tried to turn the wheel.
The testimony was one of the most dramatic episodes from a series of public hearings held in 2022 by the House committee that investigated January 6.
Referring to parts of it Thursday, Jordan asked Smith whether he had ever confirmed what she told lawmakers and if his team was planning to call her as a witness had there been a trial in the case he brought against Trump over alleged election interference.
Smith said no final decisions had been made as to potential trial witnesses and that his team, which conducted its own independent investigation into Trump’s actions following the 2020 election, interviewed her and another first-hand witness who was in the vehicle during the incident Hutchinson described.
That person, Smith said, “did not confirm that that happened.”
Hearing has restarted after break for House votes
The hearing has resumed after members took a break for House votes.
House sets up funding showdown with Senate over program that allows senators to sue the DOJ
The House just overwhelmingly agreed to add language to a critical funding package to end a recent program that allowed senators to sue the Department of Justice if they personally had been under surveillance.
The hardline move by the House sets up a major collision with the Senate, which will need to back the full funding measure – including this DOJ language – or risk a government shutdown next week.
After the vote, one aide nodded to the chamber’s typically fractious nature, remarking to CNN, “The one thing the House can agree on is F the Senate.”
The House is essentially jamming the Senate with the DOJ language and then leaving town, while the Senate will come back next week to consider the funding package.
The funding deadline is January 30.
GOP bashes Smith for phone record tactics embraced by Trump's first DOJ
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from California, grilled Jack Smith on various prosecutorial tactics that, in Kiley’s words, were later “reversed and rebuked” by the Justice Department and courts.
Much of his questioning focused on Smith’s subpoena of certain phone records from members of Congress and on the non-disclosure orders he obtained preventing phone carriers from notifying the lawmakers of the subpoenas.
The Republican narrative does not acknowledge, however, that prosecutors embraced the same tactics in investigations launched by the first Trump administration and the Justice Department’s move to rein in those tactics was in response to scrutiny of those Trump-era probes.
When Smith sought the nondisclosure orders, he did not indicate to US District Judge James E. Boasberg — also the target of GOP criticism for his approval of the orders — that the phone records belonged to members of Congress.
The Justice Department since changed its policy so that it requires prosecutors make it clear to judges when their non-disclosure requests pertain to members of Congress. Kiley described this change of policy as an example of Smith’s tactics specifically being rebuked by Justice Department.
But in fact, the Justice Department decided to change the policy in response to an inspector general report looking at the subpoenas and non-disclosure orders that were obtained by the Justice Department during Trump’s first administration.
The IG looked at four criminal leak investigations that were launched in 2017 – when Trump was president – and uncovered 40 examples of non-disclosure orders obtained related to subpoenas for records of Congress members and their staff.
“Additionally, DOJ policy in effect at the time did not require the NDOs filed with the courts to reference, and they did not reference, the fact that they related to requests for records of Members of Congress or congressional staffers,” the IG report said.
Smith says subpoenas for lawmakers' phone records was "common practice" for conspiracy investigations
When asked about obtaining phone records of Republican members of Congress during the course of his investigation, former Special Counsel Jack Smith said it was “common” to pull such information when investigating a conspiracy case.
“We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters that was assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power,” Smith said of the investigation into attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.
Congressional Republicans have recently slammed Smith for obtaining cell phone metadata known as “toll records” of some lawmakers during his probe, calling the move “political weaponization.”
Toll records are not wiretaps and don’t reveal the content of calls. They do reveal phone numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, the time of the calls, and the duration of the calls, among other things.
“The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith continued.
GOP critics have claimed that Smith was involved in unconstitutional snooping on Congress. Smith said last month in his private deposition that this was a “false and misleading” narrative.
“In conducting a criminal investigation, securing non-content toll records,” Smith testified Thursday, “is a common practice in almost any complex concern.”
Smith said in his deposition he only subpoenaed these records for nine Republicans because he already had evidence that Trump tried to call those lawmakers while attempting to delay the election certification on January 6.
Investigators examined phone records belonging to Sens. Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, and Ron Johnson, among others.
Hearing in recess for House votes
The hearing is now in recess to allow for scheduled votes on the House floor.
Jack Smith tells lawmakers: “I stand by my decisions”
Jack Smith told Congress that he stood by his decisions as a special counsel and that as a prosecutor he had “no partisan loyalties.”
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. 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,” Smith said in his opening remarks.
He said Trump’s political beliefs and candidacy played no roles in his prosecutorial decisions.
Smith criticized the way the Trump administration has punished career attorneys, FBI agents and other Justice Department staff for their work on his probes.
“After nearly 30 years of public service, including in international settings, I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” Smith said.
“The rule of law is not self-executing — it depends on our collective commitment to apply it,” he added. “It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs.”
Top Democrat on House panel praises Jack Smith: "You did everything right"
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, praised former special counsel Jack Smith during his opening statement and condemned President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Donald Trump says you’re a criminal and you belong in prison,” Raskin said. “Not because you did anything wrong – but because you did everything right. You pursued the facts, you followed the law.”
Raskin also took a swipe at his Republican colleagues who have still promoted false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, which Raskin referred to as the “big lie.”
“(Trump) knew he lost, but he threw everything into his big lie, which some people, even in this room, to this day, will still stand by, and swear by,” Raskin said.
Raskin noted that four police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, were in the room to watch the hearing. They are Aquilino Gonell, Harry Dunn, Daniel Hodges and Michael Fanone, who have all become Trump critics since the insurrection.
Jack Smith begins his opening statement
Smith began testifying before the committee just before 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
“I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalties,” he said.
GOP Chairman accuses Smith and others of being out to “get” Trump as he kicks off high-stakes hearing
The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee kicked off Jack Smith’s high-stakes hearing before the panel by accusing the former special counsel and others of being out to “get” President Donald Trump through criminal cases, impeachments and other actions.
“It was always about politics and to get President Trump. They were willing to do just about anything,” Chairman Jim Jordan said just after the hearing got underway.
He went on to tick through a winding series of grievances concerning Smith, state prosecutors who pursued cases against Trump, lawmakers who impeached him and others whom he said unfairly targeted the president in recent years.
Smith’s pursuit of Trump, Jordan claimed, was an effort to ensure he wouldn’t be reelected in 2024.
“There’s an election around the corner. It’s coming in 33 days, and he’s got to get President Trump. He’s got to stop President Trump from running, tie him up in court,” he said. “It was always about politics.”
Following Jordan’s remarks, the top Democrat on the committee – Rep. Jamie Raskin – is now delivering his opening statement.
