While His Henchmen Clam Up, Jack Smith Speaks Up

The famously elusive special counsel is defending himself and attacking the Trump Department of Justice in public as various investigations into Smith's misconduct heat up.

Jack Smith talks to Andrew Weissmann in London

Congressional Republicans, as promised, are zoning in on Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team of thugs for their tactics in bringing two criminal indictments against Donald Trump right before the presidential election. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Jordan (R-Ohio), who has been investigating the special counsel’s office since 2023, asked Smith this week to sit for a deposition to explain his role and respond to numerous allegations of malfeasance related to both cases. Jordan also wants all of Smith’s records and documents including communication with “any political appointee or senior career official of the Biden-Harris Administration.”

On the Senate side, Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc) are hot on Smith’s tail; a recently released document showed the FBI, at the behest of Smith, sought the cell phone activity of eight Senators and one House member between January 4 and January 7, 2021. Several senators sent a letter last week to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel demanding a full accounting of the decision to subpoena the cell records. “[The] unprecedented nature of the DOJ’s and FBI’s actions in collecting [members of Congress’] communication records falls squarely within Congress’ constitutional duty to thoroughly investigate potential abuses of power and creates a uniquely exceptional circumstance that demands the release of otherwise protected records.”

Four cell phone providers just received a separate letter from Grassley and Johnson asking for copies of all records related to the subpoena. So, too, did five federal agencies who also furnished information to the special counsel’s office during the Biden regime.

As I covered here, here, here, and here—just a few of my reports on both cases brought by Smith—the special counsel’s office engaged in brazen misconduct particularly in the documents case, which was devolving into a full-blown scandal for Smith before Judge Aileen Cannon tossed the indictment in July 2024 based on his unconstitutional appointment. (The Biden DOJ dropped the J6 case in Washington after Trump won. Smith resigned on January 10, 2025.)

So, Republicans—and President Trump—want answers and accountability.

Smith’s Lackeys Refuse to Cooperate

Three of Smith’s top henchmen recently sat for depositions before the House Judiciary Committee but didn’t say much. The appearance by Thomas Windom, tasked by former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco to lead the Jan 6 related investigation into Trump and anyone involved in the events of that day, in June was so inadequate that the committee subpoenaed him to appear again last month. Windom didn’t change his approach the second time around, invoking “various ill-defined privileges and objections, including the Fifth Amendment” on at least 70 occasions according to the committee.

Jay Bratt, the longtime DOJ official who helped the Biden White House and National Archives concoct the documents case against the president, refused to answer at least 75 questions from committee investigators during his May 2025 deposition. His stonewalling included answers to simple questions such as when he was assigned to the special counsel’s team and how many times he had visited the Biden White House in advance of the documents indictment, information available on the public visitor’s log and news reports.

The committee did not release the transcript of Joseph “J.P.” Cooney’s deposition but it is safe to assume Cooney took a similar stance. After all, Cooney not only served as Smith’s deputy at the special counsel’s office—Smith and Cooney go way back to their days at the Obama DOJ—but he also prosecuted Peter Navarro and Steven Bannon for contempt of Congress.

But Smith, for his part, is not clamming up. The public heard little from Smith during his 14-month partisan rampage over America’s legal and judicial system except for his announcements in June 2023 and August 2023 that he had indicted Donald Trump. In fact, reporters were so desperate for any comment that Smith was recorded exiting a D.C. Subway shop in the summer of 2023, an activity that laughably resulted in a “breaking news” segment on CNN.

Weaponization for Me but not for Thee

Now that the tables are turned, however, Smith has plenty to say. In an address at George Mason University last month, Smith said he did not want to discuss politics—but promptly did. “What I see happening at the Department of Justice today saddens me and angers me,” Smith said about the purge of hundreds of prosecutors and FBI employees involved in political witch hunts including investigations into the president. “Selfless public servants fired for doing their job; the government, using the vast powers of the criminal justice system to target citizens for exercising their constitutional rights.” This is rich coming from Smith, who sought and received a gag order against Donald Trump to prevent him from saying mean things about people involved in the J6 prosecution.

Smith warned the country is headed toward banana republic-style territory under Trump because the vaunted “rule of law” is allegedly under attack—again as he willfully ignored his own central role in weaponizing the legal system against political foes. “My career has also shown me how fragile [the rule of law] can be, much more fragile than we might think. As an international prosecutor, I have seen in other countries the rule of law erode, and I have seen how quickly that can happen. One of my concerns is that we have had the rule of law function in this country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.”

Never one to miss an opportunity to pat himself on the back—despite his long losing record in court including the Supreme Court, which gutted his J6 indictment in its immunity ruling—Smith waxed about the need for “integrity” in public service and “treating people equally under the law.”

But Smith changed his tune shortly thereafter. In speaking with none other than Andrew Weissmann at a symposium in London last week, Smith spit out a word salad trying to explain why Joe Biden did not face federal charges for willfully and knowingly hoarding classified documents for decades at his home in Delaware and the Penn Biden Center:

Prosecutors, Smith claimed, are above reproach and never allow political considerations to decide what cases to bring. (LOL):

He then disparaged Trump-appointed DOJ officials for moving to drop the politically motivated case against New York Mayor Eric Adams and bringing charges against former FBI Director James Comey.

And despite his reputation as “steely” and “tough” and “cool,” Smith worked up some tears for Walter Giardina, an FBI agent tied to multiple politically-oriented investigations to get Trump; Giardina was fired by Patel in August. Giardina’s fingerprints, however, can be traced back to the Steele dossier, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and the Robert Mueller probe. He also is accused of deleting evidence from the laptop he used during his work with Mueller. (Ironically, Weissmann also wiped the cell phone he used when heading the Mueller inquiry.)

One can safely argue Smith doth protest too much. (He also is the subject of a Hatch Act investigation by a separate federal agency.)

But methinks Smith may soon eat his own words as more evidence of his criminality comes to light.