Former Special Counsel Smith Accuses Justice Department of Political Prosecutions

Jack Smith accused Justice Department leaders of choosing prosecutions to please and impress the president, a sharp warning from the former special counsel as the battle over his Trump cases deepened inside Washington. He made the remarks at the Cosmos Club in Washington last month, framing the dispute less as a personal grievance than as a test of whether the U.S. Department of Justice can still command public trust.

Smith’s comments landed in the middle of an increasingly bitter fight over his legacy. Donald Trump has publicly called for Smith to be prosecuted for the work he did as special counsel, and Smith reportedly believes that outcome is likely. That feud has turned Smith into a symbol for both sides of a larger argument over whether criminal investigations at the Justice Department are still driven by facts and law, or by loyalty to the White House.

Smith twice indicted Trump, first in a federal case over efforts to overturn the 2020 election and then in a case involving mishandling classified documents. Both cases were dropped after Trump won reelection in November 2024, because longstanding Justice Department policy bars prosecuting a sitting president. Smith resigned shortly before Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, ending a tenure that placed him at the center of the most consequential prosecutions of a former and then returning president in modern American history.

The former special counsel has since defended his work in public and private, arguing that the cases rested on evidence, not politics. In January 2026, he appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and said there was “no historical analog” for Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election. House Republicans later released a 255-page transcript and video of Smith’s closed-door deposition from December 2025, ensuring that his testimony remained at the center of Capitol Hill’s broader dispute over prosecutorial power.

Smith’s private warning also sharpened the charge that Trump loyalists have “corrupted” the department, a claim that reaches well beyond Trump’s own legal exposure. If accusations of politicized prosecution take hold, they threaten confidence in the Justice Department itself, from the Office of Special Counsel to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the line prosecutors who depend on the department’s independence to make their cases stand up in court.