Jack Smith subpoenaed for closed-door testimony before House committee in probe of Trump prosecutions

Washington — Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a subpoena Wednesday to former special counsel Jack Smith as part of the committee’s probe into the federal prosecutions of President Trump.

Jordan wrote in a letter to Smith and his lawyers that the panel wants him to answer questions from House investigators at a closed-door deposition on Dec. 17 and requested documents that must be turned over by Dec. 12. It’s unclear what records Jordan, an Ohio Republican, is seeking from Smith.

“The Committee on the Judiciary is continuing to conduct oversight of the operations of the Office of Special Counsel you led — specifically, your team’s prosecutions of President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendants,” he wrote. “Due to your service as Special Counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter.”

Peter Koski, a lawyer for Smith, indicated that the former special counsel will comply with Jordan’s subpoena. He noted that the former special counsel had offered back in October to voluntarily answer questions in an open hearing before the Judiciary Committee about the investigations involving Mr. Trump.

“We are disappointed that offer was rejected, and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics,” he said. “Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused Republicans and the Trump administration of mounting a “coordinated campaign to smear” Smith and his team for their investigation into Mr. Trump and his allies related to their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Chairman Jordan has denied Special Counsel Jack Smith’s offer to speak publicly to the whole Congress and the whole country about his investigations into Donald Trump, instead demanding he comply with a subpoena for a closed-door, private session simply so Republicans can spin, distort, and cherry-pick his remarks through press leaks,” he said in a statement. “What are our colleagues so afraid of, that they won’t let the American people hear directly from the Special Counsel?

Raskin, of Maryland, said Smith followed the proper legal principles, protocols and guidelines throughout his probe and took “careful investigative steps.”

“Judiciary Committee Republicans want to force the Special Counsel into the shadows of a backroom interrogation and subject him to the tiresome and loathsome partisan tactics of leak-and-distort, when the American public is demanding transparency and a public hearing,” he said.

The GOP-led Judiciary Committee is investigating what it claims were the “politically motivated” prosecutions of Mr. Trump, which were led by Smith. The president was indicted on more than 40 federal charges in two separate cases. The first alleged he unlawfully held onto government documents marked classified after leaving the White House in 2021, and the second stemmed from his alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of power after the 2020 election.

The president has long denied wrongdoing and claimed Smith’s investigations were politically motivated “witch hunts” that intended to harm his candidacy for the White House.

Both cases were brought to an end after Mr. Trump won a second term in November 2024.

Still, with the president back in office and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, Smith has become a subject of investigations from GOP lawyers and the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that is unrelated to Smith’s former position as special counsel. Mr. Trump has also continued to attack Smith, calling him “deranged” and a “criminal.”

His lawyers called the ethics probe by the Office of the Special Counsel “imaginary and unfounded.”

Smith resigned from the Justice Department before Mr. Trump was inaugurated in January, but provided a two-volume final report on his investigations involving Mr. Trump to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland before leaving his post.

The first volume pertains to the investigation that stemmed from alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and it was submitted to Congress in mid-January. But the second volume, which covers Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents, has not been made public.

Garland said in January that he would not release the second volume of Smith’s final report because a criminal case involving two of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants was ongoing. But after Mr. Trump began his second term, the case against the two, aide Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira, was tossed out.

But a federal prosecutor in Miami and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers continue to argue that the second volume should be kept out of public view.

Jacob Rosen

contributed to this report.

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