Ex-special counsel Jack Smith, who has given few interviews before or since resigning from the position, said it’s “absolutely ludicrous” to suggest his investigations of President Trump were driven by partisan politics in a rare interview.
The former federal prosecutor spoke recently at a public forum at the University College of London’s Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism with Andrew Weissmann, also a former federal prosecutor as well as a frequent legal analyst on MSNBC.
Smith said he only followed the facts in probes of Trump’s improper taking of classified documents at the end of his first term and the effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“The idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it’s absolutely ludicrous and it’s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor,” Smith said.
Smith slammed what he called Trump’s effort to end the traditional independence of the federal Department of Justice and his targeting of political enemies for prosecution.
“Nothing like what we see now has ever gone on,” Smith said.
He pointed to DOJ’s dismissal of a federal corruption case against NYC Mayor Adams in an effort to ensure his support for Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
“This case in New York City, where the case against the mayor was dismissed in the hopes that he would support the president’s political agenda,” Smith said. “I mean, just so you know, nothing like it has ever happened (before).”
Smith also criticized the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, who has been charged with lying to Congress about authorizing leaks in 2020 testimony.
“This latest prosecution of the former director of the FBI,” Smith said, “just reeks of lack of process.”
He noted that Trump’s Department of Justice has broken from longstanding regulations requiring prosecutors to decide whether to bring cases purely based on the strength of the evidence.
“Process shouldn’t be a political issue,” Smith said. “If there’s rules in the department about how to bring a case, follow those rules, you can’t say, ‘I want this outcome, let me throw the rules out.’”
Smith, a former Brooklyn prosecutor who was appointed by former Attorney General Merrick Garland, brought two criminal cases against Trump, one accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the other of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Both cases were brought in 2023 and Trump was awaiting trial during the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Smith withdrew the cases after Trump won reelection. Federal guidelines prohibit prosecution of a sitting president.
The interview surfaced as congressional Republicans this week asked Smith to appear for an interview, part of an escalating effort among the GOP to pursue the perceived enemies of Trump. Smith hasn’t responded.
