He illegally attempted to “overturn the results of” 2020 and then tried to block the transfer of power to his successor, former special prosecutor Jack Smith, who had handled the two federal criminal charges against the Republican tycoon, told the House Judiciary Committee.
“Rather than accept defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in an illegal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power” to Democrat Biden, the winner of the election, Smith told the House Judiciary Committee. At the same time, he condemned the “false and misleading narratives” surrounding his research.
“I made my decisions without considering President Trump’s political orientation, activities, or beliefs, or his candidacy in 2024. President Trump was prosecuted because the evidence showed he intentionally violated the law he was sworn to uphold,” adds Jack Smith.
What came before
After Trump won the 2024 election, the federal attorney general ended the two federal investigations. One related to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election result and the other to the withholding of classified documents after he left the White House. The Justice Department thus followed its Watergate-era policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
In January 2025, however, Jack Smith, in his final report on the election case, said he was convinced that “but for Trump’s election (to the presidency in 2024) and his imminent return to the White House” he would have succeeded in convicting him.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and insisted the goal was to destroy his 2024 campaign. Earlier this week Trump, who has called Smith “sick,” called for him to be prosecuted. The Trump administration has fired dozens of Justice Department lawyers, FBI agents and other employees who worked on investigations against the president.
None of the cases made it to courtrooms.
Smith is speaking publicly for the first time
Today’s hearing at the Republican-controlled committee is Smith’s first opportunity to speak publicly to the American people.
“If you ask me if I would prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would, regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he added.
The political game in Congress
Republican lawmakers are seeking to prove the investigation was flawed and bolster Trump’s claims that his prosecutions were an abuse of the legal system.
“This has always been a political issue,” Jim Jorda, the Republican chairman of the committee, said at the start of the hearing. “To get Donald Trump, they were willing to do anything.”
Democrats have defended Smith, a career prosecutor with no partisan support who was guided, they say, by the evidence. Jamie Raskin, addressing Smith, said Trump tarnished his name “not because you did anything wrong, but because you did everything right, you had the nerve to do your job.”
Smith’s testimony focuses mainly on the case of overturning the election result. A federal judge has barred the Justice Department from disclosing many of the details of the second case, involving Trump’s withholding of classified documents after his first term ends in 2021.
