Overview
- House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan announced the hearing, which will be Smith’s first public appearance before the panel on his Trump investigations.
- The public testimony follows Smith’s December closed-door deposition, with a 255-page transcript and more than eight hours of video released on Dec. 31.
- Smith led the classified documents and 2020 election probes that produced two indictments, later halted when the election case was dropped under DOJ policy and the documents case was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon on appointment grounds.
- In the deposition, Smith said his team had proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election and described powerful evidence of willful retention of highly classified documents.
- Republicans plan to press him on alleged politicization and subpoenas for lawmakers’ phone records, which Smith defended as lawful and narrow, as AT&T has acknowledged producing a personal cellphone record tied to then‑Speaker Kevin McCarthy.