Former special counsel Jack Smith sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning and heard Republican senators brand his Trump investigations as political warfare dressed up as law enforcement. The voluntary appearance produced sharp party-line clashes and fresh disclosures about subpoenas that swept up thousands of small-donor checks and communications tied to major news organizations.
Just the News reported that the hearing added few brand-new case facts, yet it put Smith’s methods, appointment, and post-election decisions under direct fire. Smith had brought felony charges in two tracks: alleged mishandling of classified materials, and efforts tied to 2020 election challenges and the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol breach. None of those cases were prosecuted after President Donald Trump won the White House again in 2024.
For conservatives tracking equal justice and institutional power, the stakes were plain. Senators pressed whether a Biden-era Justice Department used special-counsel authority to target a political rival, vacuum up donor and press-related records, and leave unresolved questions once the cases collapsed.
Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, led with numbers. He told Smith the probe obtained at least 4,782 donor checks, many written for $5 or $10.
Grassley said the list reached constituents in every state of every committee member, Republican and Democrat, and included 42 checks from Iowans who donated to Republicans. He framed the haul as baseless overreach.
"The list includes checks from constituents in every state of every single member of this committee, both Republicans and Democrats. It included 42 checks from Iowans who dared to donate money to Republicans. No matter what you say, there is no legitimate basis for what you did."
Grassley also pointed to communications Smith secured between government sources and media outlets. The organizations named included 60 Minutes, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, The L.A. Times, The Mark Levin Show, the Media Research Center, NBC, NPR, New York Magazine, Reuters, The Federalist, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Republicans treated those details as proof the investigation ranged far beyond a narrow criminal file and into political and press-adjacent territory. Investigators have not publicly released a full primary inventory of every record in open session beyond what Grassley described at the hearing.
After the hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told the "John Solomon Reports" podcast the effort was not about law and order. She called for accountability so the same tactics would not hit another American.
"It wasn't about law and order. It was about political retribution and making people pay, making them suffer, building this file, and it is going to be imperative that Jack Smith be held to account for what he did, because we never ever want this to happen to another American."
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, went further on the institutional damage. He said Smith had dragged the Justice Department into disrepute.
"Well, let me say, you have brought the Department of Justice into disrepute, and you have done enormous damage. And I believe your conduct represents the most egregious abuse of power in the history of the Department of Justice."
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., opened an afternoon round by mocking Smith’s repeated claim of nonpartisan motives, then accused him of election interference by design. Hawley also pressed the pursuit of lawmakers’ phone records. Public detail on which records and Smith’s full reply remained limited in the account of the exchange.
"In fact, your investigation was all about politics from day one. Your investigation, so-called, your prosecution, so-called, was nothing other than an attempt to interfere politically in a presidential election in the United States of America."
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., answered Smith’s insistence on a nonpartisan probe with a blunt personal reaction, telling Smith, "you make me want to throw up in my mouth." Kennedy’s questioning also turned to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s role in the probe.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, focused on structure and precedent. He asked whether an incumbent president’s attorney general had ever appointed a special counsel to investigate a political opponent in the 250-year history of the United States.
"Are you aware of whether this has ever happened before in the 250-year history of the United States of America, where an incumbent president, attorney general, appoints a special counsel to investigate his or her political opponent. Has that ever happened before?"
Smith did not identify a comparable prior case in the material reported from the exchange. Cornyn also walked through the end of the cases and Justice Department policy on prosecuting a sitting president.
On the shutdown, Smith pointed to controlling guidance. He said the Office of Legal Counsel does not permit a prosecution to go forward given Trump’s re-election, called that Department policy, and said he followed it at all times.
"The Office of Legal Counsel does not permit the prosecution to go forward given Donald Trump's re-election. That's the Department of Policy, a Department policy, and I was committed to following the Department policy at all times."
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw the classified documents case, had found Smith unlawfully appointed and had taken steps that included naming a special master. Those rulings sat in the background as senators argued over legitimacy and limits on what Smith could discuss.
Ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., charged Republicans with months of baseless claims and with staging the spectacle late. He said Smith had volunteered nearly a year earlier to testify under oath, while the committee held eight hearings on alleged wrongdoing without calling him directly.
"Republicans have spent months spreading baseless conspiracy theories about Mr. Smith's investigation. Instead of hearing from him directly, nearly a year ago, Mr. Smith volunteered to testify under oath before this committee. Instead, [they] held eight hearings on his supposed wrongdoing, never calling him directly."
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., thanked Smith for his service, condemned the tone of Republican attacks, and urged release of the second volume of Smith’s report. Schiff blamed testimony limits on Judge Cannon’s decisions, on the committee, and on guidance from the Justice Department.
"I hope that we can let the country see your work product and see the release of the second volume of your report. You can't testify about that today because Judge Cannon doesn't want you to. Her decisions have just bent over backwards to do service for the president, and because this committee doesn't want you to, and this Justice Department won't give you guidance about what you can even say today because they don't want you to, they want you to have to fear they will come after you if you testify about the volumes of evidence that you have acquired."
Schiff added that Smith deserved better than "shabby ad hominem attacks," and said the American people did too. Democrats cast Smith as a restrained prosecutor blocked by court orders and politics. Republicans cast the same record as proof the machine protected itself while ordinary donors and press contacts got swept up.
Separate from the hearing room fight, Just the News reported the day before that Smith kept evidence on Trump after the cases shut down. That account said the conduct ran contrary to Justice Department policy that normally requires disposal or return of seized evidence when a criminal case is closed or dismissed and the material is no longer needed.
Smith stuck by his conduct at the hearing and spoke in defense of former staffers. Full under-oath answers beyond the policy explanation and the lack of a historical comparator were not laid out in complete transcript form in the available report. Case numbers, full dockets, and a complete public accounting of every subpoena line item also were not produced in the hearing summary.
What senators did establish on the record was a collision over means and motive: thousands of small donor checks, media-source communications spanning a long list of outlets, abandoned felony tracks after the 2024 election, a judicial finding that the appointment was unlawful, and a special counsel who said Department policy closed the door once Trump returned to office.
Procedurally, the next public fights center on whether more of Smith’s report volumes and underlying process records reach daylight, whether evidence-handling after dismissal drew formal review, and whether Congress treats the donor and press-record subpoenas as a one-off excess or a warning about future special counsels. Authorities have not publicly closed those questions in the material from the hearing day.
Republicans left Tuesday arguing the probe was politics first and prosecution second, built to burden a rival and chill supporters who wrote tiny checks. Democrats left arguing Smith was a public servant boxed in by a Trump-appointed judge and a committee more interested in blame than evidence.
Smith’s own through-line was institutional obedience: Office of Legal Counsel guidance, Department policy, and a claim of no partisan loyalty. Hawley called that refrain comedy. Grassley called the check seizure illegitimate. Cruz called the episode historic abuse. Durbin called the Republican case a conspiracy narrative. Those quotes now sit on the same hearing record as the 4,782-check figure and the media list.
The classified-documents case and the election-related case are no longer moving toward trial. The political and oversight case is. Blackburn’s demand that Smith be held to account, Grassley’s donor-check disclosures, and the unresolved evidence-retention report keep the fight in Congress even after the indictments died.
When federal power can subpoena a $5 check from an Iowan and scoop press-source traffic in a case that never reaches a jury, the republic still needs straight answers about who watches the watchers.
