Dec. 31 (UPI) — Former special counsel Jack Smith denied targeting President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 17.
He firmly denied pursuing the dual prosecutions against Trump for political reasons, Axios reported.
“I entirely disagree with any characterization that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election,” Smith said.
The committee hearing was done behind closed doors, but House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan. R-Ohio, on Wednesday released the transcript and a video of the hearing that lasted for 8 hours and 21 minutes.
Smith led the Biden administration’s effort to prosecute Trump for his handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results after losing to President Joe Biden.
“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for nine of those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the 10 indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” Smith told House Judiciary Committee members.
He said he was deciding whether to charge alleged co-conspirators for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, but Trump’s election win in 2024 halted the investigation.
Smith said Rudy Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn were among the Trump associates his prosecutorial team had interviewed but did not charge with alleged crimes.
When asked why he didn’t charge those two and others with lesser crimes to force them to testify against Trump, Smith said the case had plenty of evidence and no other witnesses were needed.
Smith did not offer any information to the committee that was not already publicly available regarding Trump’s handling of classified documents because U.S. District Court of Southern Florida Judge Aileen Cannon ordered him to keep the relevant contents of a 137-page case report private, he told the committee.
He said Giuliani did not believe the claims that he had made regarding voter fraud during the 2020 election and “disavowed a number of the claims,” which he excused as “mistakes or hyperbole,” Smith said.
The former special counsel also acknowledged that testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was based on hearsay and inadmissible in court.
Hutchinson claimed she was told Trump had become very angry when told that his driver was taking him to the White House instead of the Capitol and tried to grab the steering wheel of an SUV in which he was being transported during the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration at the Capitol that devolved into a riot.
She made the claim privately and before an ad-hoc House select committee, the members of which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had chosen and mostly were Democrats.
Her account was not corroborated by others with firsthand information, Smith said.
He told the committee that Trump was the most responsible party for the Jan 6 demonstration that became a riot by stirring distrust and making false statements and refused to stop the riot.
Smith said he would pursue charges against the president again if given the chance to do so.