Trump administration fires Justice Department lawyer who helped Jack Smith
Acting Attorney General James McHenry fired the lawyers who helped Jack Smith, saying he considered them “untrustworthy.”
Former special counsel Jack Smith, who led two criminal cases against then-President Donald Trump, called for public testimony to defend prosecutors against Republican politicization allegations. My chance will come on January 22nd.
Smith was removed from office by the House Judiciary Committee in private for eight hours last month, telling lawmakers he had evidence to convict President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Regarding Trump’s alleged guilt in the Capitol riot, Smith said, “Our view of the evidence is that Mr. Trump caused and exploited the incident and that it was foreseeable to Mr. Trump.”
The commission released a video of the deposition and its 255-page transcript late on Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve.
Before that private testimony, the former prosecutor asked for public testimony instead. Republican Party Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) rejected the request, calling the case against Trump “legal,” but later called for a Jan. 22 hearing in front of live cameras.
Mr. Smith secured two indictments against Mr. Trump in 2023. One case accused the real estate mogul of illegally retaining classified documents after the president’s first term, and the other alleged that Trump plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, citing a Justice Department policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents.
President Trump and Republican lawmakers investigate investigators
The Republican probe into Smith’s investigation comes as the Trump administration’s Justice Department is currently investigating or prosecuting a variety of people considered to be the president’s enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Smith himself.
The investigation into Mr. Smith is reportedly looking into whether the prosecution of Mr. Trump violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity. Mr. Smith’s lawyers argued that the investigation was “baseless” and said Mr. Smith followed the example of the special counsel who investigated President Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
Richard Painter, who served as White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, wrote on X that he did not see how Smith’s actions violated the Hatch Act. Mr. Painter noted that Mr. Smith’s legal motion had been accepted by the court.
Additionally, the Trump administration’s Justice Department fired more than a dozen employees who helped prosecute Smith, according to a Justice Department spokesperson.
Smith to defend lawsuit against Trump
In a deposition in December, Smith flatly denied that Trump’s prosecution was politically motivated, pushing back on suggestions by Trump and his allies that the special counsel was trying to influence the 2024 election.
President Trump has repeatedly criticized Smith, calling him “crazy” and “a freak” who was “used by crooked Joe Biden to attack his political opponents.”
“I would never take orders from a political leader to interfere with another person in an election. That’s not who I am,” Smith said in the affidavit.
Smith also defended prosecutors in a report released just days before Trump returned to the Oval Office, saying Trump’s “unprecedented efforts to illegally maintain power after his loss in the 2020 election and unlawful retention of classified documents after leaving office…established Department of Justice principles necessitate prosecution.”
