Watch Live: Jack Smith testifies publicly for first time on Trump probes at House hearing

Jordan said the committee would recess for House votes and would resume as soon as the votes conclude.

Smith explained why he analyzed the phone records of more than half a dozen Republican lawmakers as part of his investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in 2020.

"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 said, adding that the phone records, which did not contain the content of the calls and just the data about the calls themselves, are "common practice" in complex investigations.

In his opening statement, Smith defended his investigations into Mr. Trump, and emphasized the importance of the rule of law.

"During my tenure as special counsel, we followed Justice Department policies, we observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law," Smith said. "I made my decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election."

"President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law — the very laws he took an oath to uphold," Smith said, adding that he stands by his decision to bring charges against the president.

"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 Democrat or a Republican," Smith said. "No one, no one should be above the law in this country and the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing."

Smith said that he is "grateful" for the members of his special counsel team who investigated Mr. Trump in the face of public pressure and criticism. Most of the career FBI agents and prosecutors who worked on the cases were fired by the Justice Department in the first months of Mr. Trump's second term.

The former special counsel said he appreciates "the opportunity to appear here today to correct false and misleading narratives about our work."

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee, heaped praise on Smith in his opening remarks, thanking him for appearing before the committee and for his work, despite intense criticism from the GOP and the president. 

"Mr. Smith, thank you for appearing before the American people. I'm glad that the committee has finally granted you the same chance to report your findings to the American people that every other special counsel investigating an American president has had," Raskin said.

The Maryland Democrat acknowledged Jordan's opening statement. He said "the good chairman started by saying, 'it's all about the politics. Well, maybe for them, but for us it's all about the rule of law — and who's going to stand by the rule of law and who's going to oppose it."

Raskin called Smith "one of America's great prosecutors," citing his background working under Republicans and Democrats in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, the Eastern District of New York and at the Justice Department.   

"While others may have devoted their lives to corrupt self-enrichment, you have devoted your life to the rule of law and to public service," Raskin added.

"But Donald Trump says you're a criminal and you belong in prison," Raskin continued. "Not because you did anything wrong, mind you, but because you did everything right. You pursued the facts, you followed the law, you stuck with extreme caution to every rule of professional responsibility. You had the audacity to do your job."

"It was always about politics and to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything," Jordan said in his opening statement.

Jordan portrayed Smith's probes as in line with other investigations into Mr. Trump first announced he was running for president, saying that "Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years." 

Jordan criticized Smith's team obtaining some Republican lawmakers' phone records as part of the Trump Jan. 6 probe and a temporary gag order Smith secured against Mr. Trump. He said Smith attempted to "stop President Trump from running" in 2024.

"In spite of the left and the weaponization efforts of Jim Comey, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis and Jack Smith, we the people saw through it all, and we elected President Trump twice," Jordan said at the end of his remarks. 

Smith entered the hearing room around 10 a.m. and sat for his first public testimony as photographers snapped photos. Chairman Jim Jordan gaveled in the hearing and began with an opening statement.

In an October letter from his lawyers to lawmakers, Smith offered to testify before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. In December, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan of Ohio, subpoenaed him to appear behind closed doors instead.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Panel, said Smith answered every question to "the satisfaction of any reasonable-minded person in that room."

Following Smith's testimony, Rep. Daniel Goldman, a Democrat from New York, criticized Jordan for having Smith testify privately first.

"The accusations against him are completely bogus, and the American people should hear that for themselves," he said.

Following his testimony, Smith's lawyers again asked for their client to appear publicly, urging Jordan to call him to testify in an "open and public" hearing. Jordan said earlier this month that he had scheduled his public testimony for Jan. 22. 

Smith is also under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel, an agency that is unrelated to Smith's former position as special counsel. His lawyers called the ethics probe by the Office of the Special Counsel "imaginary and unfounded."

While Smith spoke at length at his deposition about his investigation into Mr. Trump related to the 2020 election, it's unlikely that he will be able to speak in detail about the classified documents case due to ongoing court proceedings. 

For over a year, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw the initial stages of the documents prosecution, has blocked the release of the second volume of the final report that Smith submitted to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. Smith left the Justice Department shortly after submitting his reports.

However, in December, after Smith's testimony, Cannon granted attorneys for Mr. Trump a 60-day window to challenge whether the report should continue to be under seal as separate legal proceedings in the case continue. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump's legal team asked Cannon to grant an order blocking "current, former and future" DOJ officials from ever releasing the report.

When pressed on whether he could talk about the second volume of the report, Smith told lawmakers that he did "not want to do anything to violate that injunction or that order," and said he has not reviewed his report since it was submitted to Garland in early 2025. Smith told lawmakers that unless something related to the handling of the case was in a public filing, he could not address it. 

Behind closed doors in December, Smith defended himself from accusations from committee staff and Republican lawmakers that his investigations into Mr. Trump were intended to stop his presidential campaign.

"All of that is false," Smith said, adding that "the evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit. So in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election."

Smith revealed that he and his team determined they had evidence to charge some of Mr. Trump's co-conspirators in the election-related case, but said that by the time the cases were dismissed, he had not yet made final decisions on whether to do so.

One of those co-conspirators was Rudy Giuliani, Smith said, before later saying that it's possible the former mayor of New York could have testified against Mr. Trump. Giuliani, Smith said, "disavowed a number of the claims" that he made repeatedly about the integrity of the 2020 election in an interview with the special counsel's office.

There were six unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment against Mr. Trump. Based on details and Smith's testimony, they appeared to be Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn and Jeffrey Clark, who was a high-ranking Justice Department official at the time.