Senate GOP to pressure Jack Smith over Jan. 6 Trump probe as DOJ targets investigators

WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Jack Smith, who filed two dismissed federal criminal charges against Donald Trump, is expected to answer questions Tuesday from the president’s allies in the Senate about how he conducted his investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the Justice Department’s efforts to target law enforcement officials involved in Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results as well as the investigation into his handling of classified documents after he left office in January 2021.

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has repeatedly criticized Smith. The title of Tuesday’s hearing, which Grassley will preside over — “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters” — suggests a potentially combative hearing. With this, Grassley claims Smith abused his investigative powers and targeted Republicans politically. Smith, who as a career prosecutor attacked both Republicans and Democrats, has denied such allegations.

Grassley said in a statement before the hearing that Smith “must answer” for what the senator described as “rampant abuse of authority and political targeting” funded by American taxpayers.

“If Jack Smith had done this to Democrats, you would never hear the end of it,” Grassley said in the statement, adding that his goal is to hold the Justice Department accountable for actions taken under the Biden administration.

Smith did not release a statement ahead of his testimony.

Smith said he believes a jury would have convicted Trump in the 2020 election-related case if he had gone to trial and that the idea that his decisions were “influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable.” Smith’s final report on the election interference case said Trump “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” at the Capitol on January 6.

Trump pleaded not guilty in Smith’s Jan. 6 case and denied after the attack that he incited his supporters, calling his remarks at a rally that day “totally appropriate.” Trump later described the Jan. 6 defendants as “hostages” and granted them a massive pardon upon his return to office.

The Trump administration last year launched a so-called grand conspiracy investigation into actions taken by federal law enforcement officials dating back to 2016, which would fall outside the usual five-year statute of limitations for most federal crimes.

The Trump administration also purged FBI and Justice Department officials involved in Trump’s previous investigations. Defense attorneys for current and former officials informed a court last week that DOJ officials appeared interested in investigating the circumstances of an August 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, during which agents found classified documents that were at the heart of one of the since-dismissed Trump cases.

Joe diGenova, who was a federal prosecutor under President Ronald Reagan, led the “grand conspiracy” investigation until he left the Justice Department this month. He told NBC News that “ways were crossed” in his final days.

In his first public testimony before Congress earlier this year, Smith told the House Judiciary Committee that he would not be intimidated and predicted that the Trump administration would attempt to bring criminal proceedings against him. A few months later, one of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, asked the Trump administration to investigate Jordan’s claim that Smith had “apparently” made false statements during his congressional testimony.

Smith’s lawyers said he provided “truthful and responsive responses” and that Jordan’s referral “reflects a chilling desire to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career, nonpartisan public servant who faithfully and fearlessly performed his duties by following the facts and the law.” Former federal prosecutors told NBC News that the Justice Department would have difficulty bringing a perjury case against Smith.

Smith is not expected to discuss the investigation into classified documents because Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered that part of his report as special counsel cannot be released. The Justice Department ruled that answering questions about this investigation would violate Cannon’s order.