Former special counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecutions of now-President Donald Trump, while criticizing the conduct of the Justice Department under the Trump administration, in a recent appearance in the United Kingdom.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann at an event at the University College London on Oct. 8, Smith rejected the idea that his work on the two indictments he secured against Trump was politically motivated.
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“The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case or who got chosen is ludicrous,” Smith said. “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 also criticized the workings of the Trump Justice Department, including the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey days after Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide, replaced Erik Siebert as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after he resigned under pressure from the Trump administration over his failure to bring criminal cases against Comey or New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
“The apolitical prosecutors who analyzed this said there wasn’t a case and so they brought somebody in who had never been a criminal prosecutor on day’s notice to secure an indictment a day before the statute of limitations ended,” he said in reference to Comey’s case. “That just reeks of lack of process.”
James has since been indicted on bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.
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Smith also had harsh words for the Justice Department’s decision to throw out New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case after Adams agreed to work with the White House on the president’s plans to crack down on immigration.
“Nothing like it has ever happened that I’ve ever heard of,” Smith said in reference to the Adams case.
Smith also issued a prescient warning about the Justice Department’s future amid attacks on nonpartisan public servants.
“It’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us,” he said. “If you think getting rid of the people who know most about national security is going to make our country safer, you do not know anything about national security.”
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of Donald Trump, on Aug. 1, 2023, at a Department of Justice office in Washington. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File
Separately, Smith said he was “disappointed” in the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. “There was never a question that we were going to follow the law as the Supreme Court said the law now was,” he added.
“I think once we get in a position where we start talking about maybe not following court opinions we don’t like, we are lost in terms of the rule of law,” Smith said amid concerns of a constitutional crisis in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is calling on Smith to appear before the panel by Oct. 28, describing his testimony as “necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement.”
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Smith has yet to respond to Jordan’s request.
Smith prosecuted two cases against Trump — one over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and another over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Both cases were dismissed in November 2024 following Trump’s reelection. Smith resigned in January after filing his investigative report on Trump.
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