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Former Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered forceful testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17, 2025, defending his decision to indict former President Donald Trump on both election interference and classified documents charges. In a marathon deposition lasting hours with over 600 question-answer exchanges, Smith asserted he had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump committed crimes, while Republicans questioned his prosecutorial discretion, accused him of political targeting, and challenged the legality of obtaining congressional phone records. The closed-door session revealed sharp partisan divisions over one of the most consequential special counsel investigations in American history, with Smith insisting he followed the facts regardless of Trump’s political status and faced no pressure from the Biden administration, while GOP members suggested he had improperly targeted Trump as a person rather than investigated crimes.
Complete List of Participants
Committee Members Present (House Judiciary Committee)
Republican Members:
- Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio-4)
- Tom McClintock (California)
- Scott Fitzgerald (Wisconsin-5)
- Lance Gooden (Texas-5)
- Ben Cline (Virginia-6)
- Derek Schmidt (Kansas-2)
- Mark Harris (North Carolina-8)
- Andy Biggs
- Troy Nehls
- Kevin Kiley
- Russell Fry
- Glenn Grothman
- Matthew Knott
- Eric Onder
Democratic Members:
- Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (Maryland)
- Zoe Lofgren (California)
- Mary Gay Scanlon (Pennsylvania)
- Becca Balint
- Jared Moskowitz (Florida)
- Daniel Goldman (New York)
- Steve Cohen (Tennessee, Memphis)
- Joe Neguse (Colorado-2)
- Jasmine Crockett (Texas-30)
- Hank Johnson (Georgia-4)
- Pramila Jayapal (Washington)
Legal Representation
For Jack Smith:
- Lanny A. Breuer, Esq., Covington & Burling
- Lindsey Hunt, Esq., Covington & Burling
- Peter Koski, Esq., Covington & Burling
Committee Staff
Multiple professional staff members, counsels, research assistants, and legal personnel from both the Majority (Chairman Jordan’s staff) and Minority (Ranking Member Raskin’s staff) attended throughout the day-long deposition.
Legal Constraints on Testimony: The Volume Two Problem
Before questioning began, Peter Koski, one of Smith’s attorneys, outlined significant restrictions on what the former special counsel could discuss, creating tension that persisted throughout the deposition and frustrated Democrats seeking detailed testimony about the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
Smith remained bound by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), which protects grand jury secrecy. However, based on discussions with the Department of Justice, Koski noted that Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis agreed that “based on DOJ’s authorization letter and its interpretation of Rule 6(e), it would be virtually impossible for DOJ to prosecute Mr. Smith for violating grand jury secrecy restrictions.” The interpretation limited Rule 6(e) protections to “the inner workings of the grand jury” rather than broader investigative matters.
The second and more significant restriction involved Volume Two of Smith’s final report, which detailed the classified documents investigation. Judge Aileen Cannon’s January 21, 2025, order kept Volume Two under seal, and the Department of Justice affirmed that very morning that this order “applies to Mr. Smith and that it precludes him from disclosing any nonpublic information that may be contained in Volume Two.” This included interview transcripts, search warrant materials, business records, toll records, video footage, records obtained by grand jury subpoenas, attorney-client communications, and potential evidence.
Koski noted this restriction “significantly limits Mr. Smith’s ability to discuss the classified documents case,” though Smith committed to “doing his best to answering questions consistent with the Department’s guidance.” Smith could discuss information already “in the public record and has been made publicly available through authorized means,” which became relevant when discussing emails about the Mar-a-Lago search warrant that the Department of Justice had disclosed to Senator Chuck Grassley.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin objected strenuously to these limitations in his opening remarks. Raskin noted the committee was “proceeding with this deposition today without access to Volume Two of the special counsel’s report,” despite the Eleventh Circuit ruling that Judge Cannon must address her order by January 2, 2026—just two weeks away. Raskin characterized Trump’s efforts to keep Volume Two sealed as “gagging Mr. Smith today and preventing him from telling this committee about his investigation into President Trump’s crimes.”
Raskin also complained about timing, noting the Department of Justice forwarded investigative files to minority counsel on December 15th and 16th, giving them “less than 24 hours to review all these new materials prior to this deposition.” He thanked Smith for appearing despite Smith’s request for a public hearing being denied, a point that would resurface throughout the testimony.
Jack Smith’s Opening Statement: A Vigorous Defense
Jack Smith began with a powerful opening statement defending his thirty-year career as a prosecutor and the integrity of his investigation into Donald Trump. Smith framed himself as a career prosecutor who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, guided by the principle of following “the facts and the law” without “fear or favor, to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons.”
Smith made his position crystal clear from the outset. His investigation developed “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and prevent the lawful transfer of power. On the classified documents case, Smith said the evidence showed Trump “willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom,” and then “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
The former special counsel expressed anger at Trump’s treatment of his team members. Smith stated he was “both saddened and angered that President Trump has sought revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff simply for doing their jobs.” He characterized his team as “dedicated public servants” who “are the best of us” and have been “wrongly vilified and improperly dismissed from their jobs.”
This reference to firings would prove prescient. Later in the testimony, Representative Jared Moskowitz would press Smith on whether he was experiencing “retribution,” noting that Smith’s lawyers had lost their security clearances, people who worked under him were fired, and he was being deposed rather than given the public hearing he requested. Smith acknowledged: “I have no doubt that the President wants to seek retribution against me. I have no doubt that that’s the intent.” When asked if this met the definition of retribution, Smith responded: “It seems like it meets not only the definition in Webster’s; it seems like this is exactly what Trump’s chief of staff was talking about.”
Addressing the central Republican argument directly, Smith insisted that timing questions were unfounded. He made his decisions “without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 Presidential election.” Smith declared that if asked 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.”
On the controversial toll records issue that Republicans highlighted repeatedly, Smith defended the practice as standard investigative technique. The toll records were “historical telephone routing information” that do not include call content, collected “after calls had taken place” to identify incoming and outgoing numbers, times, and duration. These records “were lawfully subpoenaed and were relevant to complete a comprehensive investigation.”
Smith connected the investigation directly to the January 6th attack, noting it was “an attack on the structure of our democracy in which over 140 heroic law enforcement officers were assaulted” and over 160 individuals later pled guilty to assaulting police that day. He emphasized that “President Trump and his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election,” adding pointedly: “I did not choose those Members, President Trump did.”
Prosecutorial Discretion and the Robert Jackson Standard
Republican questioning began immediately with challenges to Smith’s prosecutorial approach. The first questioner confronted Smith about his definitive statements regarding Trump’s guilt, noting that the Justice Manual generally prohibits prosecutors from asserting a defendant’s guilt before a jury determination.
Smith defended his characterization. While acknowledging that “when a case is pending, yes” such statements are prohibited, he argued it was “important to state clearly the amount of evidence we had and the basis for why we proceeded.” Smith emphasized: “Why we proceeded as we did is because we had a strong case, as I set forth in the final report.”
When pressed that his report made “conclusive determinations” of guilt rather than simply laying out facts and evidence, Smith drew an important distinction. The cases “were never tried. We were never put to our burden before a jury. So we didn’t conclusively prove it.” However, “the reason the report was written the way it was written and the reason I said what I just said is because it was our belief that if we went to trial we would prevail.”
The Republican questioner contrasted Smith’s language with Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents, noting Hur used careful language like “jurors could find” or “might conclude” whereas Smith’s language was “pretty definitive.” Smith responded that “The Hur report states his assessment of the evidence. Mine does as well,” adding “I feel—and feel to this day—that we had a very strong case, and so I communicated that.”
Smith did agree that “ultimately, yes” it’s the role of a jury, not the special counsel, to weigh facts and determine guilt.
The questioning then turned to the famous 1940 speech by Attorney General Robert Jackson titled “The Federal Prosecutor,” which Republicans used to probe Smith’s prosecutorial philosophy. Smith agreed with Jackson’s statement that prosecutors have “more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America” and that prosecutorial discretion is “tremendous.”
Smith also agreed with Jackson’s observation that “while the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.”
Most significantly, Smith agreed with Jackson’s warning about the “most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.” Smith acknowledged the risk that “it’s not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offenses on him.”
This exchange set up what would become a central Republican argument throughout the deposition: that Smith had targeted Trump as a person rather than investigated a crime.
Why Only Trump? The Co-Conspirator Question
Republicans pressed Smith extensively on why he focused exclusively on prosecuting Trump rather than the numerous co-conspirators identified in his investigation, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, and Kenneth Chesebro.
Smith explained that “we analyzed the evidence against different co-conspirators” and “my staff determined that we did have evidence to charge people at a certain point in time.” However, “I had not made final determinations about that at the time that President Trump won reelection, meaning that our office was going to be closed down.”
The questioner challenged this approach, noting that in prosecuting gang members and organized crime, “one of the fundamental principles of prosecutorial work is you work from the bottom up and you try to get as many fact witnesses to work with you.” Often these fact witnesses have criminal liability themselves and are either prosecuted or given immunity to secure their cooperation against higher-level targets.
The question was pointed: “But here you didn’t—you know, you kept laser focused only on President Trump.”
Smith offered two responses. First, as mentioned, “we were considering prosecutions of these people” even if he wouldn’t say what the ultimate conclusion would have been. Second, and more fundamentally, “this was a case where the issue was how to present it in a concise way.”
Smith emphasized the unusual nature of the evidence: “We had so many witnesses, again, so many witnesses who were allies of President Trump available to us to testify. This was not a case where we needed more witnesses, it was a case where we needed to be able to present the case in a streamlined way because there was so much evidence.”
When asked about a Washington Post book claiming Smith “dismissed the idea” of prosecuting those around Trump because “he did not want the office getting bogged down in potentially prosecuting those around Trump,” Smith said “I don’t think that’s accurate.” He confirmed: “I did make the decision that the first case we brought was going to be Donald Trump. And I was aware that there was evidence against other people. But I don’t think that characterization is accurate.”
The Toll Records Controversy: Congressional Phone Records and Constitutional Concerns
One of the most contentious issues throughout the deposition involved Smith’s office obtaining toll records for Members of Congress who Trump and his associates had contacted around January 6th. This topic generated over 115 question-answer exchanges, making it one of the most extensively discussed subjects in the entire deposition.
Republicans expressed “very serious concerns about acquiring these toll records” for Senators and House Members, arguing these subpoenas violated congressional protections under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution. As one questioner put it: “Members of the House and the Senate have protections under the Constitution that allows them speech or debate protections. And the toll record subpoenas, in our view, and if we had to litigate it, you know, the House lawyers would take the position that those toll record subpoenas violated the speech or debate protections.”
Asked if he disagreed with that position, Smith responded simply: “Yes.”
Smith defended his office’s approach vigorously. He stated: “My office and I personally take the protections of the Speech or Debate Clause seriously. I think they’re part of our Constitution. They’re an important part of separation of powers.” He pointed to his office’s respect for these protections as evidenced by litigation with Congressman Scott Perry and Vice President Mike Pence, “taking that very seriously.”
Smith noted that his office had Department of Justice experts on Speech or Debate Clause issues. “My office had folks who were really the Department experts on Speech or Debate. And when we sought these subpoenas, we got approval from Public Integrity, who are the sort of keepers of that issue, and they concurred in us getting these subpoenas.”
Republican questioners raised additional concerns about the process. The judges who approved the nondisclosure orders didn’t know they involved Members of Congress. Smith acknowledged: “I don’t think we identified that, because I don’t think that was Department policy at the time.”
The involvement of the Department of Justice Inspector General’s Office in serving some toll record subpoenas raised particular concern for Republicans. They argued this created a potential conflict of interest because “the inspector general is supposed to be conducting oversight, if necessary, of Department components.” One questioner noted: “But, if the IG is on your team and they’re doing this with you, that presents a problem for us.”
Smith explained that the IG’s involvement stemmed from their role in investigating Jeffrey Clark, a Department of Justice employee during the period being investigated. “The Jeffrey Clark component of this investigation, he was a Department of Justice employee during the period of time that we were, and my predecessors, were investigating this, and it’s my understanding that that was why they were involved in the investigation.”
Republicans also questioned why toll records for Senate landlines were subpoenaed, noting that in the House, calls from landlines “go out scrambled.” Smith stated he didn’t recall discussions “about how they figured out what lines we would be going for.” His role was “to understand who my prosecutors thought we should be getting toll records for, to make sure we had a basis for that under the statute, a reasonable basis.”
The nondisclosure orders (NDOs) that prevented Members from being notified about the subpoenas drew substantial attention. Smith explained that NDOs aren’t based on an allegation that “necessarily the person who has the phone number is personally going to obstruct the investigation. It’s that if this gets out, people could obstruct the investigation.”
Smith pointed to the Twitter litigation as an example. His office wanted records from Twitter regarding President Trump, but “Twitter refused to provide the records unless they could tell President Trump about that.” The resulting litigation went through multiple levels, with courts ultimately finding “it was proper of us, given the level of obstruction in this case, to get that NDO.” The Supreme Court refused to overturn the decision.
Smith acknowledged that “inherent in an NDO is it may be that certain arguments about why a subpoena should be quashed can’t be made,” but argued this was justified by the risk of obstruction in the investigation.
No Pressure from Biden or Garland: Assertions of Independence
Democrats used their questioning time to establish Smith’s independence from political influence. Representative Daniel Goldman asked a series of direct questions about whether Smith experienced any direction or interference from the Biden administration or Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The exchanges were stark in their brevity:
Q: Did Attorney General Garland or other DOJ officials direct investigative steps within your Office of the Special Counsel?
A: No.
Q: Did Attorney General Garland or other DOJ officials direct litigation decisions within your office?
A: No.
Q: Did you experience Attorney General Garland or other DOJ officials interfering with your ability to conduct this investigation?
A: No.
Q: Did President Biden ever give you any instructions about what you should or should not do related to these investigations?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever speak to President Biden about these investigations?
A: No.
Representative Jasmine Crockett reinforced Smith’s ethical obligations as a prosecutor, asking: “As a trained prosecutor, typically are you supposed to go after people that you don’t believe are actually guilty?” Smith confirmed: “You’re not supposed to go after people who you believe are not guilty.”
Crockett then asked: “In your experience of three decades, have you ever needed to seek the same indictment three times while being rejected?” Smith answered: “Never.”
Goldman followed up: “Did you ever prosecute someone that you did not believe was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?” Smith’s response: “Never.”
When asked what he would have done if he felt improper pressure from DOJ officials or the White House, Smith stated: “I think people who know me and have known my reputation would know that that would not end well if someone tried to pressure me to move a case in one direction or another.”
Smith was asked about adhering to Justice Manual provision 9-27.220, which states prosecutors may only commence prosecution if they believe “the person will more likely than not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased trier of fact and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.” Smith confirmed he followed this provision when indicting Trump in both cases.
Trump’s Knowledge He Lost: The Evidence Unfolds
One of the most detailed sections of Smith’s testimony involved the evidence his office developed showing that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election and that his fraud claims were false. This was crucial to establishing criminal intent in the election interference case.
Smith distinguished between two types of knowledge: “one, that he lost the election; and another, that the things he was saying, the false—the fraud claims were, in fact, false.”
On Trump’s knowledge that he lost, Smith pointed to Trump being “repeatedly told by people that the very fraud claims that would change the outcome were not true.” He noted that “when he was told by his campaign team, in essence, that if you can’t win Arizona you can’t win the election, and then he lost Arizona, he changed out that team and went with Giuliani and his group.”
Smith cited statements from other individuals, including General Mark Milley who said Trump was “going to leave this for the next guy,” and another staffer who overheard Trump saying something to the effect of “you keep fighting regardless of whether you won or lost.”
Smith’s report included Trump’s own acknowledgments. As detailed in Volume One, Trump made statements including “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still fight like hell” and “Can you believe I lost to this f’ing guy?”—referring to Joe Biden.
On the false fraud claims themselves, Smith described a pattern of Trump being specifically and repeatedly debunked by trusted allies and experts:
In Pennsylvania, Trump was briefed that he would initially lead the vote count, but his lead would dissipate when mail-in ballots were counted. “He chose to represent that phenomenon that he’d been briefed on, that was normal course of an election, that all sides knew that that’s how it was going to be, he chose to present that as evidence of fraud.”
The chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, Larry Tabas, told Trump shortly after the election why Pennsylvania’s absentee ballot counting was legitimate and that there was no fraud. This didn’t stop Trump from continuing to make false claims about Pennsylvania.
Trump made persistent claims that more people had voted in Pennsylvania than had been given ballots—a claim email traffic among his staff showed they knew “was very clear” wasn’t true because “we were talking about two different elections.”
Smith emphasized the breadth of the evidence: “There were fraud claims in, you know, Michigan, Georgia, where he was specifically disabused by people he trusted, by political allies, by the people, when he chose to call them, who were best situated to know. He reflexively rejected those things and continued to state false things after he’d been told repeatedly that they weren’t true.”
The case of Sidney Powell illustrated Trump’s pattern. Powell, initially part of Trump’s team, “began making statements that really nobody could credit, that were facially false.” At one point, Giuliani said she wasn’t on the legal team anymore, and Trump himself said on a call that she was “crazy.” But then “after that point, he continued to promote her fraud claims and lawsuits. He considered putting her as a special counsel, even though he’d admitted—you know, he used the word ‘crazy,’ and the statements she was making couldn’t by any reasonable person be viewed as true.”
Smith characterized this as “strong evidence of our case”—that Trump continued “pushing those sort of claims after they’d been disabused.”
The Seven Target States and False Claims
Smith’s investigation focused on seven states where Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to overturn results: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Georgia. Smith noted these were “all States that he lost by a pretty small margin except for, again, New Mexico is 10 percent.”
Trump only approached people “generally who had party allegiance to him.” Smith noted: “As I sit here now, I can’t think of anyone who wasn’t someone who was loyal to him politically.” Many witnesses who would have testified for the prosecution “rejected his entreaties” to help overturn results.
Smith cited examples of Republican officials who pushed back. In Georgia, the attorney general stated: “I voted for him twice. I wanted him to win. I campaigned for him.” Yet they still rejected Trump’s pressure.
Representative Thomas Marino, a former Republican Congressman and U.S. Attorney from Pennsylvania who had agreed to be an elector for Trump, was presented with the fake elector scheme. His reaction, according to Smith’s recollection, was “that this was an attempt to overthrow the government and it was illegal.”
The false claims Trump promoted included:
- Claims about dead voters
- Claims about underage voters
- Claims about illegal alien voters
Smith noted these “were generally, as a general matter, about urban centers where he had lost the vote in a particular State that was otherwise close by a lot.” These were claims “rebutted by people around him who knew that they were false and in many cases told him they were false.”
Trial Strategy: Credible Witnesses Putting Country Before Party
Smith provided insight into how he would have presented the election interference case at trial. He emphasized the power of Republican witnesses who contradicted Trump:
“We would have presented what I viewed as very strong witnesses from each State to explain how the elections occurred in that State and why the events, the outcomes were trustworthy, and debunking various fraud claims that President Trump made.”
The strategy would have interspersed Trump’s false claims “with debunkings to him, or other evidence that showed they weren’t true and that that evidence got to him.”
Smith explained why he believed Republican witnesses would be particularly powerful: “I think someone who puts country before party, I think my understanding of people, of jurors, that people appreciate that. I know I certainly do.”
He continued: “The other part about that is the reality of, like, when people speak out against their political party, there can be costs. And when people are willing to pay those costs because they believe in something, because they’re going to tell the truth, I think people get that.”
Smith added: “I think the witnesses I’m talking about, if I had to cross-examine them and make them not look credible, that would be very hard. I think that would be a very hard assignment.”
Trump’s own acknowledgments that he lost would have been “corroborative” of this larger case—”the cherry on top, if you will”—but Smith felt the most powerful evidence “came from people in his own party who, as I said earlier, put country before party and were willing to tell the truth to him, even though it could mean trouble for them.”
January 6th: Awareness of Armed Supporters and Calls to Congress
Smith’s testimony addressed Trump’s actions on January 6th itself, though with less detail than other aspects given the time constraints of the deposition.
Representative Zoe Lofgren asked about testimony that Trump’s supporters were leaving weapons outside magnetometers and that Trump said “Let them come through anyhow, because they’re not going to hurt me,” followed by Trump calling on them to go to the Capitol knowing some were armed.
Smith recalled interviewing people near Trump before the Ellipse speech. “On that point, there were different recollections and different points of view. Some people said what you said. Other people had more innocuous explanations about why people stayed outside the magnetometers.”
Smith confirmed: “Clearly, people did stay outside the magnetometers. You could see that in the video of the crowd.”
Regarding armed individuals, Smith stated: “I do recall there were people who certainly had weapons at the Capitol.” He noted “people who used weapons, whether they be poles or sticks or other weapons, against police officers” and “one officer who they took his gun.” Smith characterized the violence as “outrageous” and noted it “figured heavily in what happened at the Capitol that day.”
Smith had emphasized in his opening statement that over 140 law enforcement officers were assaulted and over 160 individuals later pled guilty to assaulting police. The investigation showed that “exploiting that violence, President Trump and his associates tried to call Members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election.”
The Timing Question: Political Motivation or Evidence-Driven?
Republicans repeatedly suggested the timing of Smith’s indictments was politically motivated, designed either to keep Trump off the campaign trail or damage his electoral prospects as the Republican nominee.
One questioner framed it directly: “People with different views than you can say the Special Counsel’s Office is only interested in prosecuting President Trump because an election is coming up and he is—he’s going to be the Republican nominee. And the special counsel works for a Democratic President, the special counsel works for a Democratic Attorney General” with the goal of “keeping him off the campaign trail.”
Smith pushed back firmly on these suggestions throughout his testimony. He insisted that the “timing and speed of our work reflects the strength of the evidence and our confidence that we would have secured convictions at trial.”
Smith explained that he consulted Department regulations about election year sensitivities. There were requirements that “if you’re going to bring a tax prosecution, you have to consult with the Tax Division,” and “if you’re going to bring a national security-related case for classified documents, mishandling of classified documents, you need the National Security Division to okay that.”
Smith noted there’s “an election year sensitivity memo, and there’s also regulations, specific regulations for specific situations” that guided his decisions.
When asked hypothetically whether he would have accepted the role as special counsel to investigate Biden based on the same facts, Smith responded: “Yes.”
DOJ Policies and Approval Process
Smith’s testimony revealed the extensive consultation process his office followed for sensitive investigative steps. When seeking toll records for Members of Congress, Smith personally approved the subpoenas “with, of course, the fact that I wanted consultation with Public Integrity.”
He confirmed the approval chain was: “So that was the universe of DOJ authorization? You didn’t have to go to the DAG. It was you and public integrity?” Smith responded: “That’s correct.”
For the classified documents case, Smith had to get approval from the National Security Division, which had authority over cases involving classified information.
Smith emphasized that his staff included people “who were really the Department experts on Speech or Debate” and that “when we sought these subpoenas, we got approval from Public Integrity, who are the sort of keepers of that issue, and they concurred in us getting these subpoenas.”
Restrictions and What Could Not Be Discussed
Throughout the deposition, Smith and his attorneys repeatedly invoked restrictions preventing discussion of certain topics, particularly anything in Volume Two of his report covering the classified documents investigation.
When asked to elaborate on what he could and couldn’t discuss about Volume Two, Smith explained: “Well, there is an order of Judge Cannon, an injunction regarding Volume Two. I want to make very clear that I do not want to do anything to violate that order in any way, shape, or form.”
This limitation frustrated both Democrats seeking information about the documents case and Republicans who wanted to probe investigative decisions. The sealed report became a recurring source of tension, with minority members arguing the public deserved to know the full scope of Trump’s alleged misconduct regarding classified materials.
The restriction meant Smith could not discuss in detail the Mar-a-Lago search, the specific classified documents Trump retained, the extent of obstruction efforts, or many other aspects of what his investigation uncovered.
Reflections on the Investigation’s End
Smith’s testimony made clear the investigation ended not because the evidence was insufficient, but because of Trump’s election victory. Smith stated he “had not made final determinations” about charging co-conspirators “at the time that President Trump won reelection, meaning that our office was going to be closed down.”
This constitutional reality—that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted—meant the cases against Trump would not proceed to trial regardless of the strength of evidence. Smith emphasized this didn’t reflect on the merits: “The timing and speed of our work reflects the strength of the evidence and our confidence that we would have secured convictions at trial.”
The Public Hearing That Wasn’t
The issue of Smith being deposed rather than testifying in a public hearing surfaced multiple times. Moskowitz pressed Chairman Jordan’s decision not to allow a public hearing, asking Smith: “Why do you think Chairman Jordan wouldn’t give you a public hearing?”
Smith declined to speculate: “That’s not for me to say.”
This became part of the broader discussion about whether Smith was experiencing retribution for his investigation. Moskowitz noted that Smith’s lawyers lost security clearances, his team members were fired, and he was hauled before the committee in a closed-door setting rather than being allowed to make his case publicly.
Smith acknowledged these facts but stated regarding the deposition itself: “I don’t frankly connect that with this hearing. I don’t have any connection. I came here. I was asked to come here” and appeared “in good faith.”
However, Smith was unequivocal about the broader pattern: “I have no doubt that the President wants to seek retribution against me if he can. I know that. …I agree that this Department wants to seek retribution against anybody who worked on cases against President Trump.”
The Strength of the Evidence Claim
Throughout the deposition, Smith returned repeatedly to his core assertion: the evidence in both cases would have resulted in convictions had the cases gone to trial.
On the election interference case, Smith detailed extensive evidence from Republican officials in seven states who told Trump his fraud claims were false, Trump’s own acknowledgments he lost, the pattern of seeking out only partisan allies rather than actual experts, and the multi-faceted scheme involving fake electors, pressure on state officials, attempts to misuse the Justice Department, and exploitation of January 6th violence.
On the classified documents case, even with the limitations imposed by Judge Cannon’s order, Smith could reference publicly available information showing Trump’s willful retention of highly classified materials in unsecured locations and subsequent obstruction efforts.
Smith’s confidence in his cases was reflected in statements like: “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.”
Conclusion: A Historic Deposition
The December 17, 2025, deposition of Jack Smith stands as a remarkable document—over 600 question-answer exchanges spanning hours of testimony from a former special counsel defending the most consequential prosecution decision in modern American history.
Smith presented himself consistently as a career prosecutor bound by evidence and law, not politics. He detailed extensive proof that Trump knew he lost the election, knew his fraud claims were false, and engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn democratic results. He defended his decision to focus initially on Trump rather than co-conspirators as driven by the overwhelming evidence available from Trump’s own allies and the need for a streamlined case presentation.
Republicans pressed him on prosecutorial discretion, suggesting he had targeted Trump improperly, violated congressional protections in obtaining phone records, and timed his indictments for political effect. Smith rejected each suggestion, pointing to extensive consultation with Department experts, adherence to policies and regulations, and the strength of evidence as driving all decisions.
Democrats established Smith’s complete independence from political pressure, with Smith testifying he had zero communication with President Biden about the investigations and experienced no direction or interference from Attorney General Garland.
The testimony revealed deep partisan divisions over fundamental questions: Was this a good-faith prosecution of serious crimes, or an improper targeting of a political figure? Should congressional phone records have been obtainable with nondisclosure orders, or did this violate constitutional protections? Were the indictments properly timed and motivated, or were they election interference themselves?
These questions remained unresolved as the deposition concluded. With Volume Two of Smith’s report still under seal pending Judge Cannon’s decision in early January 2026, the full story of the classified documents investigation remains untold. And with both criminal cases now ended due to Trump’s election victory, a jury will never render the verdict Smith believed the evidence would support.
Smith’s final message was clear: he followed the facts where they led, assembled proof beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal conduct, and stands by his decision to prosecute regardless of the political consequences. Whether history judges him as a principled prosecutor or a political actor may ultimately depend on whether Americans ever learn what’s in the sealed volume of his final report.
Reference
Smith, Jack. Deposition before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. 17 Dec. 2025. Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.