The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena Wednesday compelling testimony from Jack Smith, the former special counsel who pursued prosecutions against President Trump.
Mr. Smith was ordered to turn over documents by Dec. 12 and to appear for a deposition on Dec. 17.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said the goal is to delve into the cases Mr. Smith brought against Mr. Trump and his co-defendants, as well as the counsel’s tactics, such as trying to obtain a gag order against the former president while he was running for the White House again.
“Due to your service as special counsel, the committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter,” Mr. Jordan said in a letter delivering the subpoena to Mr. Smith’s attorneys.
The deposition will take place in a closed-door setting.
Peter Koski, Mr. Smith’s attorney, said the former special counsel is ready to tell his story but wants the hearing to be open for the public to see.
“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,” Mr. Koski said. “Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation.”
Mr. Smith won two criminal indictments against Mr. Trump. One indictment, in Florida, accused him of mishandling classified documents. The other, in the District of Columbia, accused him of malfeasance surrounding the 2020 election and its aftermath.
The Florida case was tossed by the judge overseeing it. The case in the District was dropped after Mr. Trump won reelection last year. The Justice Department has a policy of not pursuing charges against a sitting president.
In a report submitted to Congress and released ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Smith said the president would have been convicted had he not won the election.
“To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable,” Mr. Smith said at the time.
His cases were predicated on assertions that Mr. Trump knowingly lied by making false claims about the 2020 election outcome and “willfully” encouraged supporters to rush the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disrupting the Electoral College count.
Mr. Smith labeled Mr. Trump “the individual most responsible for what occurred at the Capitol on January 6.”
Questions about Mr. Smith’s pursuit of Mr. Trump dogged the cases. Those questions have been amplified as the administration releases troubling details about parts of the investigation.
Among those is Mr. Smith’s pursuit and a court’s approval of subpoenas for phone records of sitting members of Congress.
Mr. Smith also subpoenaed records of figures from the first Trump administration, including senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as communications that went to media companies, according to documents released by Congress.
Mr. Smith’s attorneys have said he “adhered to established legal standards and Justice Department guidelines” in pursuing the cases.
That includes the subpoenas seeking phone records of sitting lawmakers.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House committee, said Mr. Smith should have had a chance to tell his story in public testimony.
“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,” Mr. Raskin said.
Mr. Smith’s inquiry stemmed from a Biden Justice Department investigation dubbed Arctic Frost.
Republicans have called Arctic Frost an anti-Trump “fishing expedition.”
The investigation began at the FBI in April 2022.
In November of that year, Attorney General Merrick Garland named Mr. Smith as a special counsel in charge of investigating Mr. Trump.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said Mr. Smith’s investigation was “worse than Watergate.” He said the FBI went to extraordinary lengths to try to shield Mr. Smith’s aggressive investigative tactics.
The Office of Special Counsel, an independent government agency that is separate from Mr. Smith’s former special counsel job and which polices the Hatch Act, said this summer that it was investigating Mr. Smith.
Mr. Jordan previously referred Thomas Windom, Mr. Smith’s senior assistant special counsel, to the Justice Department for possible charges of obstruction of Congress.
Although Mr. Windom appeared twice for depositions, Mr. Jordan said he provided answers that were so incomplete and explanations that were so legally unfounded that his conduct warranted a criminal investigation.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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