{"id":2011,"date":"2025-10-15T17:07:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T17:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2025-10-15T17:07:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T17:07:23","slug":"takeaways-from-former-special-counsel-jack-smiths-scathing-review-of-the-trump-justice-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways from former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s scathing review of the Trump Justice Department"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former special counsel Jack Smith, whose historic prosecution of Donald Trump was upended by the president\u2019s reelection last year, insisted that the pair of criminal cases he brought against Trump were untainted by politics.<\/p>\n

But the current Trump Justice Department is different, Smith said in a recent wide-ranging interview with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the\u00a0University College London\u00a0made available Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Smith criticized how the Trump DOJ has handled several-high profile cases and lamented the impact its moves will have on the justice system writ large.<\/p>\n

His comments provide a window into the thinking of a man the public rarely saw during his yearslong investigation of Trump and come as Republicans are ramping up probes into how Smith worked.<\/p>\n

Here are the key takeaways:<\/p>\n

Defends his investigation and says politics played no role<\/h3>\n

During the discussion with Weissmann, who worked on former special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Smith said it was \u201cabsolutely ludicrous\u201d that politics would play a role in his probes into Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it\u2019s absolutely ludicrous and it\u2019s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith supervised a team of prosecutors who investigated and secured indictments of the then-former president in two separate probes: one for the retention of classified documents in Florida, and another for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

The group of prosecutors who worked for him during his time as special counsel were also not interested in politics, Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are team players who don\u2019t want to do anything but good in the world. They\u2019re not interested in politics,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI get very concerned when I see how easy it is to demonize these people for political ends when these are the very sort of people I think we should be celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is requesting an interview with Smith as Republicans look to portray former President Joe Biden\u2019s Justice Department as retaliatory against Trump.<\/p>\n

The request sent Tuesday comes\u00a0one week after\u00a0Senate Republicans announced that the FBI, as part of Smith\u2019s\u00a0January 6 investigation, used court orders in 2023 to obtain the phone records of nine GOP lawmakers, a move the senators called \u201cpolitical weaponization.<\/p>\n

Comey prosecution \u2018reeks of lack of process\u2019<\/h3>\n

At one point, Smith, who worked for years as a federal prosecutor, ripped into the Justice Department over how it\u2019s operated under Trump, skewering it for allowing what he views as an unprecedented amount of politicization into the country\u2019s justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing like what we see now has ever gone on,\u201d Smith said. \u201cProcess shouldn\u2019t be a political issue, right? Like if there\u2019s rules in the department about how to bring a case, follow those rules. You can\u2019t say, \u2018I want this outcome, let me throw the rules out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith pointed to the federal charges brought last month against\u00a0former FBI Director James Comey\u00a0and the decision to drop the federal criminal case against\u00a0New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, as two examples of how the department was operating out of the norm in Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors dropped the case against Adams, which was brought last year, after the mayor agreed to work with Trump in his effort to crack down on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing like it has ever happened that I\u2019ve ever heard of,\u201d Smith said of the Adams case.<\/p>\n

Comey, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty last week to two charges stemming from alleged false statements he made to Congress during testimony in 2020. A Trump-installed prosecutor in Virginia,\u00a0Lindsey Halligan, secured an indictment against the former FBI director after Trump\u00a0publicly complained the Justice Department wasn\u2019t moving aggressively enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis latest prosecution of the former director of the FBI. You know, there\u2019s a process to secure an indictment,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere\u2019s a process of predication, having some evidence before you do that \u2026 The career prosecutors, the apolitical prosecutors who analyzed this said there wasn\u2019t a case and so they brought somebody in who had never been a criminal prosecutor on days\u2019 notice to secure an indictment a day before the statute of limitations ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just reeks of lack of process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

People are leaving because of politics<\/h3>\n

Smith, who has served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, said he believes the political appointees atop the Justice Department are acting differently than in previous administrations.<\/p>\n

Career prosecutors are \u201cbeing asked to do things that they think are wrong and because they\u2019re not political people, they\u2019re not going to do them,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think that explains why you\u2019ve seen the resignations, you\u2019ve seen people leave the department,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s not because they\u2019re enemies of one administration or the next. They\u2019ve worked through decades for different administrations. It\u2019s just they\u2019ve been doing things apolitically forever. And when they\u2019re told, \u2018No, you got to get this outcome no matter what,\u2019 that is so contrary to how we were all raised as prosecutors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Criticizes the Supreme Court\u2019s immunity decision<\/h3>\n

The cases Smith brought against Trump were slowed down and eventually complicated by the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s consideration of whether Trump enjoyed broad immunity\u00a0from criminal prosecution for his actions in office.<\/p>\n

But Smith, who, when Trump was reelected, was in the process of trying to salvage the cases after the high court decided he had substantial presidential immunity, said Wednesday that there was a wide interpretation of immunity as the question made its way through lower courts and eventually up to the justices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe district court, the appellate court, and the dissent (at the Supreme Court) strongly weighted the rule of law considerations,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe majority opinion strongly weighted the other considerations, and to your point, and brought up your point of, \u2018Well if you do this, there\u2019s going to be this response.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Smith doesn\u2019t agree with the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling, he told Weissmann that his office never questioned whether they would follow the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a really important thing to understand here is, while I didn\u2019t agree \u2026 we followed it. There was never a question that we were going to follow the law as the Supreme Court said the law now was,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

But he said he was concerned that the court\u2019s ruling was \u201ctantamount to saying you can never prosecute powerful, high officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is not prosecuting high officials who did something wrong when you do it according to the processes of law in your country,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s the retaliation. That\u2019s the problem and that\u2019s the thing that we should preventing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Tons of evidence\u2019 that Trump kept classified documents willingly<\/h3>\n

While Smith was investigating Trump for his retention of classified documents, Attorney General Merrick Garland also appointed another special counsel, Robert Hur, to investigate Biden possibly having possession of classified documents as well.<\/p>\n

Smith and Hur ultimately came to different conclusions, and Hur decided not to bring charges against Biden. Smith pointed out that the main difference between the two cases was the facts that were presented to prosecutors investigating the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference is the facts. The rule of law allows for different outcomes when the facts are different. One of the major differences between the two cases is the obstructive conduct in the case that I investigated,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith explained to his audience that as a prosecutor trying to prove that someone retained classified documents, the prosecutor needs evidence that the defendant \u201cwillingly\u201d kept possession of the information.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo prove an illegal possession of classified documents, you need to show that you possessed the documents, or the defendant possessed the documents, willfully. And that means that he knew what he was doing was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith said he had \u201ctons of evidence\u201d that Trump had willingly retained the classified documents, and that the investigation into Biden did not have the same kind of evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence to not give the documents back when the government even tried to get them back before there was a criminal investigation \u2026 and then after the investigation started, still refusing to give them back, and then trying to obstruct the investigation, that helps prove willfulness,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat sort of evidence didn\u2019t exist in the other case.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A photo published by the U.S. Justice Department in their charging document against former U.S. President Donald Trump shows boxes of documents stored in a bathroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in early 2021 as seen embedded in the document released by the Justice Department in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2023. – U.S. Justice Department\/Handout\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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