Former United States Special Counsel Jack Smith has defended his prosecution of President Donald Trump, rejecting Republican claims that the cases were politically motivated.Testifying before lawmakers at the House Judiciary Committee, Smith said the two federal cases, one over Trump’s handling of classified documents and the other over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, were based on evidence, not politics.Both cases were dropped after Trump was re-elected in November 2024, in line with longstanding Department of Justice policy barring the investigation or prosecution of a sitting president. Smith resigned shortly before Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.The hearing marked the first time the US public heard at length from Smith since his resignation. He told the panel that he expected Trump’s Justice Department to try to bring criminal charges against him.These are the key takeaways:What specifics do we know about the cases?Smith, a public corruption prosecutor, was appointed in November 2022 to oversee the investigations into Trump.These are the two cases he investigated:Classified documentsSmith investigated Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office at the end of his first term.The criminal case included 31 counts under the US Espionage Act for the willful retention of national defence information, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Separate charges accused Trump of conspiring to obstruct justice and making false statements to investigators. Advertisement Prosecutors alleged that Trump removed highly sensitive documents from the White House when he left office in 2021 and later stored them at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. An aerial view of US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where prosecutors allege he held top secret documents, on August 15, 2022 [File: Marco Bello/Reuters]2020 election resultsThe second case focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Prosecutors argued that Trump sought to block the lawful transfer of power after the vote, rather than accept the outcome.The charges followed a wide-ranging investigation into the events l …
