The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday requesting a criminal investigation of former special counsel Jack Smith, alleging he made false statements during a congressional deposition last year.
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Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that Smith “seemingly made willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact that contradict new documents” the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained this month.
Jordan asked the Justice Department to investigate Smith for a criminal charge, writing that his committee found “strong evidence” against him.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed receipt of the referral and said Wednesday that it “will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.”
Smith has long been a target of President Donald Trump, who has disparaged him over his prosecutions of Trump.
Fox News first reported Jordan’s referral.
In a letter to Jordan and Blanche, attorneys for Smith denied that he made any false statements during his deposition, writing that he “provided truthful, responsive answers and candidly discussed his work as Special Counsel.”
“The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement — the letter concedes he did not — but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked,” lawyers Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer wrote.
The pair said the referral “reflects a chilling eagerness 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.”
As special counsel, Smith oversaw two investigations beginning in 2022. One focused on election interference in the 2020 presidential election and the other on allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents after his first term ended. Trump denied any wrongdoing in both cases, which were dismissed in 2024 after he was elected to a second term. Longstanding DOJ policy prevents a sitting president from being prosecuted.
Jordan cited an exchange from Smith’s deposition before the committee on Dec. 17, when Smith was asked whether he sought a “search warrant for the content of any text messages from Members.”
Smith responded, “No, I don’t recall that.”
Asked whether he had asked only for toll records of the members of Congress, Smith said, “Correct.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement Wednesday that Jordan’s referral “deliberately distorts and misstates the facts, including what questions the Republicans actually asked at Mr. Smith’s interview.”
“Congressional Republicans never asked Jack Smith about presidential records,” Raskin said.
Raskin argued that committee Republicans did not ask whether the messages from lawmakers were found on White House officials’ phones, whether the presidential records Smith subpoenaed included the messages or whether Smith’s team had ever “reviewed text messages from Members.”
“Jack Smith could not have lied because Republican Members never even asked the question their theory is based on,” he said.
Senate Republicans said last week that they had obtained documents from the Justice Department revealing Smith and his team reviewed text messages sent by 44 members of Congress as part of their investigations into Trump.
The documents the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained show that the messages were sent by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but mostly Republicans, to White House officials during Trump’s first term.
Smith’s team received the text messages from the National Archives and Records Administration in August 2023. They included text messages from October 2020 through Jan. 21, 2021, the committee said on July 14.
The Senate Judiciary Committee argued that because Smith’s team had not waited for a “Filter Team” to evaluate and segregate “privileged information” out of those messages, Smith and his team violated protections ensured by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.
“Smith’s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings,” committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement on July 14. “Jack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable.”
Grassley was on the list of members whose messages were reviewed, along with Jordan, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and longtime Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky.
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