Jack Smith on the Ropes

The disqualified special counsel is making the rounds on cable news while his lawyers fight a criminal referral against their client for making false statements to Congress--and possibly more.

Jack Smith, the disgraced former special counsel, is lawyering up and lashing out.

The man often described by the media as “fearless,” “calm,” and “apolitical” during his two-year reign of terror as Merrick Garland’s handpicked lawfare goon is tipping his highly partisan and somewhat jittery hand as Republicans in Washington set their sights on him. Smith’s veil of mystery—CNN actually covered his trip to D.C. Subway shop in July 2023 as “breaking news”—has been voluntarily lifted as he faces Congressional and possible criminal investigations into his handling of numerous inquiries, which ensnared the private communications of sitting members of Congress.

A cleaned-up Smith, who typically presents a raggedy beard and pallid complexion, recently commiserated with MS-NOW’s Nicolle Wallace on a number of topics, including the (LOL) weaponization of the Department of Justice:

Jack Smith is one of the biggest losers (in terms of court rulings) in DOJ history…

The man who has been obsessed with Donald Trump for almost four years claims he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Donald Trump…

Mr. Tough Guy…

But Smith’s victim routine isn’t fooling Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. On July 22, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Jordan sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice accusing Smith of misleading Congressional investigators when he denied that the special counsel’s office had obtained text messages belonging to members of Congress. “While testifying under oath, Mr. Smith seemingly made willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact that contradict new documents obtained by the Committee from the Department of Justice (DOJ),” Jordan wrote to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The Committee is providing this information for the DOJ to investigate a potential violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.”

Text Messages? What Text Messages?

At issue is Smith’s December 2025 too-cute-by-half testimony related to his subpoenas for the toll records of several Republicans lawmakers. (Toll records show cell phone activity but not the nature of conversations or content of texts.) While Smith accurately answered direct questions about obtaining text messages—texts belonging to 44 members of Congress were swept up in Smith’s collection of messages sent or received by dozens of Trump White House aides, handed over without a fight by the National Archives in 2023—the shady prosecutor failed to separately disclose that fact to investigators:

“The responses provided by Mr. Smith gave the impression that neither Mr. Smith nor his team had access to the content of Members’ privileged text messages. We now know this to be false,” Jordan wrote.

The Ohio Republican reminded Smith that he “was advised of his obligation to provide all necessary information that would make his responses truthful. The Committee specifically instructed him that he could not tell half-truths or exclude information necessary to make statements accurate, and that a deliberate failure to disclose information could constitute a false statement.”

Bring in the Fixers

Smith’s criminal defense team—which includes former Clinton fixer Lanny Breuer, who brought Smith on board as head of the DOJ’s public integrity unit in 2010 during his stint at the Obama DOJ—quickly fired back. “This 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,” Smith’s attorneys wrote to Jordan and Blanche. More LOL.

While Smith, his lawyers, and their accomplices in the media want all of this to look like the latest example of Trump using the DOJ to “retaliate” or seek “retribution” against his political enemies, at least one Democrat has expressed concern over Smith’s reckless handling of investigations into his colleagues. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) conceded that Republicans are “rightly concerned about the possible breach of norms and improper access to email [sic].” Documents also revealed that Smith’s team mishandled privileged material while intentionally ignoring Speech or Debate Clause protections in the collection of members’ cell content—a pattern of misconduct demonstrated by the Special Counsel’s team in the classified documents case and the seizure of Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone records in 2023.

Jordan’s referral now sits on Blanche’s desk. So, too, does a separate referral against Thomas Windom, Smith’s top henchman in the J6 indictment against the president, for obstruction of Congress related to his stonewalling during a deposition last year.

And while skepticism as to whether anything will happen to either one is certainly warranted—especially considering the hostile grand jury environment Trump’s DOJ faces in the nation’s capital—the fact that Smith is paying high-priced lawyers and groveling to cable news hosts is a gratifying scene for now.