Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tore into former special prosecutor Jack Smith during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, alleging his investigations into President Donald Trump were “all about politics from Day 1.”
“Your investigation, so-called, your prosecution, so-called, was nothing other than an attempt to interfere, politically, in a presidential election in the United States of America,” Hawley said to Smith during the hearing.
During the hearing focused on Smith’s two investigations into Trump, Hawley alleged Smith opened the inquiries “all for the purpose of keeping Donald Trump off the ballot.” Smith, under former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, investigated Trump twice: once over the 2020 elections and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol Building, and once over the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Republicans on the upper chamber’s judiciary committee laid into Smith on Tuesday, scrutinizing his investigations into the current president and the methods he used to conduct the inquiries, including a subpoena of GOP lawmakers’ phone records as part of Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation.
Hawley grilled Smith about whether or not the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section told Smith not to set a trial date in the Trump investigation ahead of the 2024 election. As Hawley insisted, the Public Integrity Section warned Smith against the move, saying it could be perceived as “partisan,” Smith responded, saying Hawley’s assertion was “incorrect.”
Hawley also pointed to the fact that J.P. Cooney, a prosecutor who worked under Smith, ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2026.
The two further sparred over the Arctic Frost phone record subpoenas, with Smith insisting he “followed the Constitution” in regard to subpoenaing the phone records, while Hawley claimed Smith “didn’t even attempt to.” They went back and forth in disagreement over a testimony Smith gave to the House, in which Hawley claimed Smith “lied” about obtaining text messages from members of Congress, while Smith fired back saying, “I answered every question I was asked truthfully.”
“You’re a smart guy,” Hawley said during the fiery exchange. “I think that’s pretty clear. But you use your ability and the powers of your office to lie to the court, to lie to Congress, to lie to the American people, to lie to the House.
“I’m glad you failed,” Hawley continued. “I don’t know what our democracy would be like if you had succeeded in your effort to interfere in the workings of a presidential election. If it were up to me, I’d charge you with perjury, but you should certainly be disbarred.”
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Smith responded to the Missouri senator in the final moments of the congressional hearing.
“There are several things that Senator Hawley just said that are not accurate,” Smith said. He said that his office followed proper protocol to obtain the phone records and that the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section “concurred that we had followed the election year sensitivities policy.”
