Name: Former special counsel Jack Smith testifies about Trump investigations
Uploaded: 2025-12-17T18:27:30.255Z
Duration: 3 min 22 s
Description: Former special counsel Jack Smith is testifying behind closed doors on Wednesday over his investigations into President Trump. CBS News Justice Department reporter Jake Rosen has more details.

Former special counsel Jack Smith is testifying behind closed doors on Wednesday over his investigations into President Trump. CBS News Justice Department reporter Jake Rosen has more details.

Washington

Former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is participating in a closed-door deposition with House Republicans regarding his investigations into former President Donald Trump. The deposition, part of an ongoing congressional inquiry, focuses on Smith's probes into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Smith's legal team has voiced concerns about the lack of transparency in the closed session and the possibility of selective disclosure of his testimony. Although Smith previously offered to testify publicly, House Republicans opted for a private format, aiming to question him on key decisions and actions taken during his tenure as special counsel.

Former special counsel Jack Smith testifies about Trump investigations

Former Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is sitting for a closed-door deposition with House Republicans this hour. House Judiciary Committee members digging into his investigations into President Trump. Smith arrived on Capitol Hill moments ago, as you see here, and this deposition is part of an ongoing investigation into criminal inquiries of President Trump during the Biden administration. Smith, as you'll remember, led the investigations into Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election and the classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. CBS News Department of Justice reporter Jake Rosen joins us now from our D.C. Bureau with more on this. Really fascinating, Jake, to know this is happening behind closed doors with lawmakers right now. What questions do we expect Jack Smith to answer, considering all of his cases were moot since Mr. Trump became president once again? Well, Smith's representatives and legal team have said that he's open to answering any questions that these House Republicans have. They actually offered earlier this year, Errol, to go in front of both the House and Senate publicly for everyone in America to see the person who brought these high-profile charges, as you noted, have since been dismissed, but at least be held accountable in the public eye and to defend his work. There have been so many misconceptions, and frankly, Errol, attempts to rewrite the work of Jack Smith by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. Jack Smith and his legal team are trying to do that today. However, they point out in numerous statements over the last couple of weeks that they're worried that this potential closed-door testimony would result in cherry-picked quotes potentially being pulled from this conversation. In addition to that, just not getting the exact amount of transparency that they want in going forward. However, we're likely to hear pushing from House Republicans on what Jack Smith knew and signed off on ahead of the Mar-a-Lago raid, which was related to the classified documents probe, at the same time as Jack Smith's ongoing work for years about the January 6th attack at the Capitol and the alleged, if you believe House and Senate Republicans, potentially phone-tapping or getting phone records of sitting senators who President Trump had called. Jack Smith's team has defended all of that, saying it was signed off by career prosecutors, and they pointed to his record over not just his time as special counsel, but going back 20-plus years in different roles throughout the Justice Department and other places. We'll see what comes out of this, but certainly a very high-profile and high-pressure moment for somebody who has not talked much since these cases were dropped over the last couple of months. Yeah, and Jake, just in our last few seconds, why not allow Smith to testify or speak publicly? Well, certainly it allows Republicans to control the narrative. In this testimony, Errol, it's very clear that they don't want Jack Smith to go out in the public. It's something that he pushed for in two or three different letters that we've obtained from him and his lawyers in this kind of back-and-forth with Jim Jordan, who leads this Senate, or this House committee, who is doing this questioning today. We'll certainly see more to come. And potentially, this could open the door to some kind of wide-open public hearing. But as of right now, the worry for the Smith team is that potentially things could be cherry-picked. But Jack Smith and his legal team say they have nothing to hide, and every potential criticism will be addressed by someone who really has nothing to lose at this point, who's out of the Department of Justice, who's starting his own law firm, and is going to continue working towards defending his work over these special counsel investigations. All right, I know you'll have updates for our viewers as they emerge on this story. Jake, thanks very much. Great to see you.

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