Former US special counsel Jack Smith said he would not be silenced by threats of prosecution as he faced Republican accusations of abusing his authority during his investigations into President Donald Trump, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
“I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the president or others,” Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee at his second public congressional hearing on his investigations into Trump.
He also criticised the Trump administration over the firing of investigators who had worked on his team.
Republican lawmakers accused Smith of conducting politically motivated investigations and improperly obtaining information from Republican officials and groups.
The hearing focused in particular on phone records involving members of Congress that Smith’s investigators obtained while examining efforts to prevent certification of Trump’s 2020 election defeat.
“This wasn’t a normal prosecution,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said, calling Smith’s operation a partisan effort that broke the rules, according to Reuters.
Smith defended his investigations, saying they followed Justice Department policy and were not driven by political considerations. He said investigators needed lawmakers’ phone records because they had evidence that Trump and his allies sought to contact senators during the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot in an effort to delay certification of the election results.
The dispute over the records has become a major focus of Republican scrutiny of Smith. His investigators obtained call logs from several Republican senators around the time of the Capitol riot, while Republicans later disclosed that his team had also reviewed text messages involving 44 US lawmakers as part of its examination of material from White House aides.
Republican Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, referred Smith to the Justice Department in July, alleging that he had made false statements to lawmakers about the phone records. Smith’s lawyers have said he answered truthfully and was not required to provide information that lawmakers had not specifically asked for.
The records in question are known as toll records and contain details such as call information, rather than the content of conversations.
Smith’s appearance comes as Republicans continue efforts to scrutinise the investigations that led to two now-dismissed criminal cases against Trump — one over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and another over his handling of classified documents after his first presidential term.
Democrats on the committee defended Smith’s work, arguing that his investigations sought to hold Trump and others accountable for alleged unlawful conduct. They accused Republicans of using the hearing to pursue their own political agenda.
The Republican scrutiny also extends to Smith’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents. The Justice Department under Trump is examining whether the former president’s rights were violated during the probe, while several former FBI officials involved in the 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort have been asked to testify.
Two prosecutors, including a Justice Department official overseeing that investigation, have resigned from the probe in recent weeks, according to Reuters.
