WASHINGTON — John L. “Jack” Smith delivered a full-throated defense of his investigation into President Donald Trump on Thursday, telling the House Judiciary Committee he stands by his decisions as special counsel and “took actions based on the facts and the law.”

Smith, testifying publicly for the first time about investigations that led to two criminal cases against Trump, pushed back against long-standing Republican criticisms that his work was driven by partisan politics.

Smith said he was not a politician, has no partisan loyalties and had served as a career prosecutor in Republican and Democratic administrations.

“I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold.”

Smith’s special counsel office brought two criminal cases against Trump, one in Washington tied to Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and another in Florida that accused Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after his first term.

The propriety of Smith’s investigation cut along party lines at the hours-long hearing Thursday, with Republicans slamming Smith’s investigative tactics and Democrats arguing the practices were logical and common.

For Republicans, the hearing offered a rare, face-to-face opportunity to confront Smith and press for answers about an investigation they have long criticized as a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed at hurting Trump.

Conservative lawmakers repeatedly castigated Smith’s efforts to collect the phone records of Republican lawmakers.

Even when confronted by GOP lawmakers, Smith avoided escalating tensions, speaking calmly through the hearing and steering clear of rambling answers.

Smith, meanwhile, used the platform Thursday to outline the findings of his investigation.

Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election rather than accept defeat, he told the committee. And Trump, after leaving office in 2021, also illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to hide the retention of those documents, Smith said.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity,” Smith said. “If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican.”

“No one, no one should be above the law in this country and the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did,” Smith said.

Smith also said Trump has sought to “seek revenge” against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff simply for having worked on special counsel cases.

“To vilify and seek retribution against these people is wrong. Those dedicated public servants are the best of us,” Smith said.

Phone records

GOP lawmakers on Thursday slammed efforts from Smith to seek the phone records of Republican lawmakers. GOP senators have said their call records were sought as part of an investigation called “Arctic Frost,” which lawmakers say formed the basis of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

That type of information, known as “toll records,” identifies the incoming and outgoing call numbers and the time of a call. It does not include the content of the call.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California was among Republicans who cited that tactic as evidence that Smith’s investigation was politically tainted. “They sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they. They were Harris’ political enemies. They were the enemies of the president, and you were their arm, weren’t you?” Issa said.

“No,” Smith responded. Issa then accused Smith of seeking to spy on the Republican lawmakers.

“My office didn’t spy on anyone,” Smith responded.

Smith’s explanations were not enough to win over Republicans. “You walked all over the Constitution throughout this entire process, spying on members of Congress and you know it. It’s absolutely disgraceful,” said Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.

The toll records and nondisclosure orders they secured were consistent with policy, Smith said.

Under questioning from Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the panel, Smith said his team wanted to conduct a thorough investigation into the attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. Securing non-content toll records is a “common practice” in complex conspiracy cases, Smith said.

“The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said.

Attorneys for Smith have also sharply rejected Republican arguments that Smith spied on senators’ communications. The information is by their nature historical and collected after the phone calls have occurred — a tactic different from wiretapping, which involves intercepting communications in real time, his attorneys have said.

The phone records sought from the Republican senators covered a four-day period surrounding the 2021 attack on the Capitol. That limited time frame was in line with an effort to investigate the validity of news reports that stated Trump and his allies tried to call senators during and after the riot to urge them to delay the certification of the election results, the attorneys wrote.

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