(AFP) – Former Special Counsel Jack Smith was testifying behind closed doors on Wednesday before a Republican-led House committee looking into his past prosecution of US President Donald Trump. Smith, who had requested that his deposition be delivered in public, declined to speak to reporters as he arrived for the meeting with members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Lanny Breuer, Smith’s lawyer, said the ex-special counsel, in testifying, was “showing tremendous courage in light of the remarkable and unprecedented retribution campaign against him by this administration and this White House.” Breuer told reporters that Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, conducted this investigation based on the facts and based on the law and nothing more.
Trump was accused by Smith of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Neither case came to trial, and Smith — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 presidential election.
Since taking office for the second time, Trump has urged the Justice Department to bring cases against Smith and a number of other perceived political opponents. Cases brought against Trump foes James Comey, a former FBI director, and New York Attorney General Letitia James collapsed last month after a judge ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has criticized the decision by the Republicans on the oversight panel not to allow Smith to testify publicly. “What are our colleagues so afraid of, that they won’t let the American people hear directly from the Special Counsel?” Raskin said. “The American people deserve to hear the full unvarnished truth about Special Counsel Smith’s years-long effort to investigate and prosecute the crimes committed by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
