Republicans brought former special counsel Jack Smith into a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday to discuss his investigations into President Donald Trump.

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) urged the Justice Department to indict Smith, alleging he perjured himself before the House Judiciary Committee when he talked about toll records vs. a wiretap. Smith appeared before that committee in January and nine months later, Attorney General Todd Blanche has failed to indict him.

Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou told MS NOW that Republicans are getting into specifics and minutiae about the case, in large part because "they want to talk about Jack Smith's investigation without talking about what the investigation was about."

Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo.) became a subject of ridicule online during the hearing after a contentious round of questioning in which he angrily demanded answers about a slew of strange things.

New Mexico civil rights lawyer Owen Barcala noted Schmitt's question about Smith's work putting war criminals behind bars.

"Very funny to try to attack Smith by making him out to be, like, a superhero that travels the world convicting corrupt presidents," he said on BlueSky.

Election and law policy expert Andy Craig said in a thread on the hearing, "Aside from toeing the party line, these senators really hate Jack Smith because they're viscerally opposed to the idea of prosecuting politicians. They are committed to their own elite impunity above and beyond whatever they think of Trump. Thus their obsession with the phone records is a non-issue."

"Smith never tried to prosecute a member of Congress, even though some probably should have been ... But that his investigation even glancingly touched their bubble infuriates them. Not even J6-ers themselves care about that, but they do. Thus their how dare you huffing and puffing," he added.

"They'll do performative outrage for Trump. They're actually outraged at the idea that they aren't so special as to be above the law. They have a genuine class solidarity with Trump insofar as the class they care about is people in high elected office not being subject to the criminal justice system," Craig said.

Former FBI lawyer Andrew Weissmann said that one of the key things he's watching in the hearing is that the Republicans aren't talking about the specific facts of the case.

"The problem is that none of the questions deal with the actual facts about the two indictments that were brought by grand juries in Florida and Washington D.C.," said Weissmann. "In other words, there's been no questions to say this is a defense. This is why Donald Trump is innocent of one or both of those charges. In order to claim a political witch hunt you would think you'd need to say, 'Look, there was no there-there. But you were still going after him.' So, that's sort of this big picture that's worth noting when you hear all of this discussion: how many people are actually talking about the facts? What actually was charged against Donald Trump in D.C. and Florida."

He went on to call it nothing more than a "game" and said there were "subpoenas that were issued by the grand jury at the request of special counsel Jack Smith." Since grand jury investigations are secret, it is not unusual for subpoenas to be secret as well.

One federal prosecutor thinks that Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-Ohio) efforts to bring down former special counsel Jack Smith won't make it, regardless of how determined Jordan is during the Tuesday hearing.

Jack Smith will be on Capitol Hill again Tuesday to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee over what he told Jordan earlier this year.

Republicans cornered Smith in a previous hearing after discovering that Smith saw call logs between President Donald Trump and lawmakers. While Republicans railed against it as "overreach" by the former Joe Biden administration, it became clear that the information didn't come from spying on GOP lawmakers.

“I stand by my testimony before the House of Representatives,” Smith will say before Jordan's hearing, according to his opening statement, which he has released. “I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the president or others.”

Smith will also make it clear that he would prosecute Trump again today, whether he were a Republican or Democrat.

Jordan thinks that Smith lied to them and Republicans want to prosecute him, but CNN legal analyst Ankush Khardori poured cold water on Jordan's efforts.

"So, first of all, he absolutely did not lie under oath when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee. What happened is, he did not affirmatively disclose a separate mechanism that they pursued to get messages that Republican members of Congress had in the White House," said Khardori.

Host Audie Cornish asked if that was a lie of omission, but Khardori said that under federal law it is not a lie.

"He was asked a question about how, you know, whether certain messages were obtained through a certain mechanism. He answered that question truthfully," the ex-prosecutor explained. "Jim Jordan is angry, and Republicans are angry that he did not disclose separately that his team had acquired some communications from the National Archives, communications that were actually from the White House. Not retrieved from members or their devices."

Khardori made it clear that Jordan has no shot at prosecuting Smith.

"If there is any effort to prosecute Jack Smith on the basis of the exchange that Jim Jordan has been invoking here, it will fail miserably," he said. "I would be surprised if it gets past a grand jury. And even if they did manage to indict him, my guess is a judge would throw it out. That is how tenuous Jim Jordan's allegation is."

Republican political strategist Ashley Davis said that she doubts anyone from the Republican base will even pay attention to this.

"I think it's personal," she said.

"Yeah, well, I don't know," confessed Khardori. "I mean, we're a month out from the election. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the country. There's a major hack of FBI agents, information that ordinarily you would expect the Senate Judiciary Committee to maybe care about."

He thinks it is a "reminder to people who are angry with this administration heading into the November elections, that Trump could have been in prison right now if the Republican Party had not prevented the Justice Department from" doing its job.

Khardori said that it's clear the Justice Department, and Attorney General Todd Blanche in particular, desperately want to investigate Smith.

"By the way, you know, I've spoken with members of Smith's team over the course of the year. None of this fazes them," Khardori said. "They understand and believe that this is a wholly political process. Jack Smith, you'll notice, is not taking the fifth. I believe this is the third time, actually, he will testify in front of Congress."

House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), is going after former special counsel Jack Smith, but a former FBI official needled the Republican for being angry that he followed their rules.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday morning, former FBI official Andy McCabe was asked about the recent referral of Smith for indictment, noting that even Jordan doesn't seem to be confident in his accusations.

At issue is Smith's request for the subpoenaed toll records. The records show details about those who called President Donald Trump on Jan. 6 during the attacks on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. The records do not record what was discussed, however. Only the date, time and length of the call are included.

Smith was asked about whether text messages were in those toll records, and he answered correctly that they were not. There's a second set of records he got from the National Archives that has text messages, but those aren't toll records. The question specifically asked about the toll records.

What Jordan has a problem with is that Smith answered each question with simple "yes" or "no" answers and didn't volunteer any additional information. So, while Jordan has referred Smith to the DOJ for a perjury indictment, there's a low likelihood that the case will make it past preliminary court hearings.

Smith's attorneys said that even Jordan indicates that Smith didn't commit perjury in his letter.

“The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement — the letter concedes he did not — but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked,” said Smith's lawyers Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer in a statement.

McCabe was asked whether what Smith answered constituted a crime.

"Not even close, John. Not even close," said McCabe to CNN host John Berman. "This is the sort of referral that in any other Department of Justice would be politely ignored because on its face, it's legally insufficient. You know, perjury charges, false statement charges have to be explicit. There can be no question whatsoever about what the question required and exactly what information the person testifying provided."

What the Judiciary Committee asked and how Smith answered isn't enough to accuse him of lying, said McCabe.

"'Seeming misrepresentation.' 'Kind of maybe have suggested' doesn't cut it. 'We asked him this, but he didn't say enough,' doesn't cut it," McCabe continued. "It has to be a direct answer to a direct question. That is clearly not the case here."

The other challenge for Jordan's referral for indictment is that Smith was restricted by the Justice Department in what he could say to begin with.

"Jack Smith, first of all, was not only not under any obligation to provide information beyond the scope of what was asked in the question. He was actually prohibited from doing so because he was under very strict rules from the Department of Justice that he could not go beyond a certain point and volunteer information that is currently under seal," McCabe explained.

The ex-FBI official said that Smith "had to be laser-careful about the answers that he gave. He gave an answer that was responsive to the question asked. No foul."

Another point McCabe made is that, as Trump's former personal lawyer on matters pertaining to Smith's investigations, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would be required to recuse himself from being involved in any way in the allegations.

"In this Department of Justice, I doubt it. If he recuses here or if he presides over the determination not to investigate Jack Smith, I would say his time in that office would be limited. And he knows that better than anyone," said McCabe. He also claimed that Blanche is in a "permanent application process" and "he's one bad decision away from being cast out of his current role."

McCabe also revealed that he has already been subpoenaed in one of the DOJ's retaliatory cases. The lesson he wants folks to take from this is to avoid the current DOJ at all costs. If you speak to them, you do so at your own peril, he implied.

"The message you should take away from this is do not cooperate with the government," he warned. "Do not provide answers under oath. Do not provide answers to Congress. Do not provide answers to questions to agents or to a grand jury, because this Department of Justice will take what you say and apparently what you don't say and try to use that against you all in pursuit of the president's revenge mission that against you all in pursuit of the president's revenge mission."

Republicans have spent the past two years looking for a way that they could target former special counsel Jack Smith and they think they've found one. The problem, one legal expert explained, is that they're operating more off of hope than reality.

On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to share a blog post about Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) referring Smith for criminal prosecution, claiming he lied under oath.

"Justice at last???" Trump said, sharing the report.

CNN legal expert Elie Honig explained that the scheme wouldn't work.

"I do not think there is a valid, provable federal crime here against Jack Smith," he began. "And here's why: The core of the allegation that Jim Jordan is making is that Jack Smith testified back in December that he had not seen the substance of text messages involving members of Congress. But it later turned out he had seen text messages."

On its face, that sounds like he lied, said Honig. The challenge for the GOP is in looking at the transcript of the actual question he was being asked at the time and which set of documents they were talking about.

"The problem is there are two different sets of documents that Jack Smith testified about," said Honig. "The first one that he's being questioned about. There are documents that Jack Smith obtained: phone records of certain members of Congress. And as Jack Smith testified here, you can see all that he saw is the record of what phone number called, what phone number on what date, and for how long."

CNN displayed the transcript on the screen.

"Okay. Did the toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls?" asked the GOP lawmaker, according to the transcript. Smith said, "No."

The lawmaker then asked, "Did the records that you requested, the toll records from the Member of Congress, include the content of the text messages?" Smith answered, "No."

The toll records are documents that show when calls were made, not text messages. The text messages that Smith read from members of Congress came from the National Archives. All of those texts were backed up for record-keeping purposes. They're a different set of documents than the toll records. So, when the Republicans were asking the question, he was specifically saying "the toll records from the Member of Congress," and toll records don't contain text messages.

Honig said that Smith could have offered information that he had seen the contents of the text messages in the other documents, but he simply answered the question as asked.

"It's not false for him to say there that he had not seen the substance of the text messages," he added.

Honig anticipates that if the DOJ tries to indict Smith, he will likely move to dismiss the case based on "vindictive prosecution."

"And if he makes that argument, which he surely will, if he gets prosecuted, this will be an exhibit to make that argument," said Honig. "He'll say, look, the president is openly pushing for this. There's a long-standing history between us, and that will bolster a vindictive prosecution defense should Jack Smith ever get charged."

While Jordan claims that Smith was speaking in "half-truths," Honig said you can't bring a case of perjury based on a half-truth. "In order to make a perjury case, you have to show a specific, clear question and a specific, clear false answer."

While Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, attended law school, he's never taken the Bar Exam, nor has he ever practiced law.

Smith's attorneys released a statement saying, "This reflects a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career, nonpartisan public servant who faithfully and fearlessly performed his duties by following the facts and the law."

The Justice Department made a huge mistake this week; it was forced to confess in a court filing to Judge Eileen Cannon in Florida.

For years, the second volume of his full report on the investigations of President Donald Trump has been hidden from public view. One DOJ prosecutor is on trial for emailing the volume to her own private email. Now, the same DOJ that is trying a case against the woman for emailing it to herself has emailed it to her lawyers.

In a joint court filing announcing the data breach, the DOJ explained, "On June 3, 2026, the Government fulfilled its Rule 16 discovery obligations by furnishing electronic evidence and materials in its possession related to this criminal prosecution on flash drives to defense counsel. On June 9, 2026, defense counsel promptly notified the Government that, upon reviewing the electronic discovery that same day, defense counsel identified three documents embedded within the materials and contacted the Government to determine if those documents were intended to be produced in discovery."

They then reviewed the material and found the secret Jack Smith report.

"Upon review, the Government confirmed the documents in question were copies of the Volume II Report that were embedded within electronic messages required to be produced in discovery. Upon confirmation by the Government, defense counsel voluntarily ceased review of the discovery material, affirmed they had not examined the documents in question, deleted all discovery materials already downloaded to their server and cooperated with the Government’s efforts to recover the flash drives that same day," the filing continued.

The document goes on to say that the government "acknowledges the professionalism and candor of defense..."

Members of the House and Senate have been pressing for transparency about the report, since there has been no justice around the president's classified document theft.

“We all know that Trump retained classified documents after leaving office and tried to obstruct efforts to have them returned," said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) in a statement. "The issue has always been ‘why?’ and Smith’s report would cast revealing light on the truth. Trump clearly violated the law whether he was or will in the future be prosecuted. The public deserves to know why this chapter in Trump’s serial violations of the federal law isn’t brought from the shadows and what and why powerful people want to keep it hidden. What’s in Volume II? An inquiring public needs to know.”

One detail in the book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan revealed that Trump has been cracking jokes about his document theft, teasing which documents he wants to steal at the end of his second term.

“This one would be good!” Trump said within the last year while holding up one document, a source said. They were quick to note it was a "joke."

The sources told reporters that Trump has at times spoken about making classified documents available for his presidential library, while at other times he has said he wants to "take them" to Mar-a-Lago for his own private use.

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith told MS NOW in a Thursday interview that he’s still prepped and ready to relaunch his case against President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents and his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

“After the Supreme Court grants Donald Trump immunity you filed a superseding indictment. You’re still ready to bring the case to trial, right?” asked MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace.

“Yeah. Correct,” Smith confirmed without hesitation.

“… We did what good prosecutors do and what you’re supposed to do. … we didn’t agree with the [court’s] reasoning of it, but we looked at the evidence we could no longer use and the evidence we could use … and in this particular case a lot of the evidence was him in his role as a candidate and we felt we could go for it.”

Smith added that Trump’s chances of being prosecuted and convicted are still very good if his research is presented before a court of law.

“We would not have gone forward with the case if I still did not feel we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” Smith told Wallace.

Smith, a career prosecutor known for his work on high-profile cases, was tasked with leading what became one of the most significant legal challenges to Trump's post-presidency activities.

Smith's investigation resulted in federal indictments against Trump on multiple counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The classified documents case centered on allegations that Trump retained national defense information after leaving office and obstructed efforts to retrieve them.

Smith's work became increasingly controversial and subject to political pressure. Trump and his allies criticized the investigation as politically motivated persecution, while supporters argued it was necessary accountability. The special counsel faced obstacles including challenges in securing cooperation from key witnesses and navigating complex legal questions about presidential authority.

After Trump's return to office in 2025, the special counsel's cases faced significant legal and political challenges. Trump's appointment of allies to key Justice Department positions complicated Smith's investigation, and questions arose about the future of pending cases.

Smith represented an attempt by the Justice Department to independently investigate a sitting president through the special counsel mechanism — a process that ultimately proved contentious and unable to proceed unimpeded amid changing political circumstances of Trump’s successful re-election.

However, Trump is termed out. And once he is out of office, Smith said nothing stops his case from plowing forward again. The facts and the evidence, he said, are preserved and waiting for review.

Outgoing Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) didn't spend his full ten minutes questioning former special counsel Jack Smith during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday. Instead, he made his own comments about President Donald Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department.

Tillis, who is not running for reelection, said that he asked AI to find some specifics about so-called "vindictive prosecution" and found some examples from Trump.

"The one thing I want to observe, where on may be a bit of an odd duck, is I have few skills, but good memory is one of them. I think it's fascinating how people want to pick up the mantle of a vindictive prosecution when their guy is not in office, but I was going through AI after you finished your opening statement," he said.

"I find it interesting people think they are the only party that is right and righteous on this. That is a general statement. I don't expect you to speak to it. Recently, I thought 8647 was not a solid basis for making a former FBI director, who disappointed me profoundly on this committee, probably not the right way to spend our time or the perp walk," he added, talking about Trump's targeting of former FBI Director James Comey.

"I had to get that out there," Tillis said, before wagging a verbal finger at his colleagues. "I think we all need to be mindful of how we behave and how we are perceived."

He said that while many of his colleagues want to accuse Smith of political motivation, he's still interested to see "if at some point in the future we can get down to who, precisely, was responsible for forcing every member of the U.S. Senate to be in this room while thugs destroyed this building and injured over 100 police officers. I hope we can find who is responsible for that and hopefully we can cool the political temperatures to get to that fact-based assessment."

Tillis then gave Smith an opportunity to say where he wished he'd done something different from those two cases.

Smith said, "One of the things I was taught as a prosecutor through my career is you only do your talking in the courtroom; you don't talk on the courthouse steps. One of the things I learned from this experience is if you stick to that and that alone people can unfairly malign your team, you, and your case in a way, and you really can't respond because you don't want to interfere with someone's right to a fair trial. And you don't want to get down in the gutter and start calling people names. At the same time, there are things being put out daily that are patently untrue."

He said that he's not advocating that prosecutors go online and start responding in the comments section, but that he agrees, in the future, prosecutors should be able to communicate with the outside world.

"I believe strongly we did our investigation the right way. But I limited myself and who I talked to about that," he continued. "I think I did two announcements under four minutes in the time I was special counsel. I think going forward to engender public trust in these cases, I think that's a real thing we need to think about, going forward, in the future."

Writer Emily Zanotti thinks that Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo.) sent out his talking points and press availability about his conspiracy theory about former special counsel Jack Smith before he made them in the hearing and was fact-checked to his face. She's not the only one who appears to have noticed that Schmitt's false claim suddenly appeared online via influencers quickly.

Zanotti noted that she was seeing right-wing media folks already pushing out talking points alleging perjury by Smith.

"Oh man, the influencer instruction emails went out BEFORE the testimony," she said, showing a post from Benny Johnson.

In the screen capture, Johnson appears to accuse Smith of perjuring himself.

Schmitt mistakenly claimed that Smith was in Atlanta, Georgia, the day after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed she'd dated a consultant her office later hired. As Schmitt told it, Smith was in Atlanta for an NBA game, seeing the Atlanta Hawks, and it raised suspicions about whether he was working with Willis.

Smith made it clear he'd never met Willis and wasn't in Atlanta for an NBA game. Schmitt smirked, reminding Smith he's "under oath." Smith made it clear he'd never been to an NBA game in Atlanta.

Schmitt flashed a blown-up poster board of text exchanges showing Willis with Smith and the text messages about Smith's seats for the game. Smith asked if he could see it again. He said that they'd removed it so quickly he didn't get a chance to see who was alleging what.

Schmitt even sneered, "It's ok. I think you've already perjured yourself."

That's when it became clear that the "Hawks" game that was being discussed was, in fact, the Iowa Hawkeyes playing the University of Maryland. Smith said he wanted to see Caitlin Clark play.

It appeared TPUSA got them too, as Schmitt went on Charlie Kirk's old show after the hearing, where they also repeated the conspiracy theory but then revealed that Schmitt was proven false.

Schmitt has attempted to save himself from what critics are calling a "humiliating" moment on national television by saying that it was his job "to ask the questions."

Former New York Daily News reporter Helen Kennedy thinks that this was clearly part of a broader effort by Republicans for a big "gotcha."

"I may need to go get my tinfoil hat, but I really think there was a big right-wing campaign ready to go based on the assumption that Schmitt was going to pull a splashy gotcha moment," she said on BlueSky. "The Axios story and all of these right wingers immediately crowing that Smith got got. And then not following up."

The Axios story she is referencing is a piece that dropped Tuesday morning before the hearing claiming that Schmitt's name is being passed around as a vice presidential running mate.

Litigator Dilan Esper commented, "It's nice to see the sausage being made every once in a while. Yes, there are plenty of people who simply repeat whatever talking points they are given. They have no intellectual honesty and don't confirm things or think for themselves. And something like this can expose them."

Even local Missouri news reporters made the same observation.

Mark Maxwell, political editor of KSDK News in St. Louis, quipped, "This is what it looks like when pre-rehearsed coordinated talking points go out to a goober host with zero knowledge or curiosity about what actually happened in the real world. Just deeply embarrassing for everyone involved. Back in Missouri, we still await return calls/emails."

President Donald Trump ally U.S. District Judge Ailleen Cannon dismissed the president's Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution in 2024, the criminal case involving Trump’s alleged stealing and misuse of classified state documents after his first term. Critics say Cannon unquestionably granted Trump a huge favor, siding with defense lawyers who said special counsel Jack Smith, who filed the charges, was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

In May, she then blocked the release of the files Smith and his team created. Nonprofits have since appealed Cannon’s decision blocking of the files on free speech grounds and fighting government corruption, to prevent the judge from destroying Volume II of the investigation.

But there’s a complication in the Trump team’s attempt to bury Smith’s investigation. Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, who formerly worked as a managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, may have tried to mail the relevant documents of Trump’s damning investigation to her own email — and Trump’s politicized DOJ is still furious.

“The DOJ, which Donald Trump controls, has asked a judge who threw out the president's Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution to ‘consider further action’ after a former government lawyer was charged with stealing ex-special counsel Jack Smith's never publicly disclosed report on the probe,” Law and Crime reports.

The DOJ does not want the details of that case to appear in public, and they announced an indictment against Lineberger in May.

“The defendant concealed her actions by saving electronic copies of the government records in question under the misleading files names ‘chocolate cake recipe’ and ‘bundt cake recipe’ before electronically transmitting those records to her personal email accounts,” Trump DOJ alleged in May. “As to the DOJ report, the indictment further alleges the defendant acted knowing that her transmission of the record outside DOJ directly violated the court order and impaired the proper administration of the underlying criminal prosecution.

Still furious on Monday, apparently, Trump’s DOJ asked Trump’s vetted ally in U.S. District court to come down hard on Lineberger alleging to Cannon that her crimes are also a violation of the Cannon’s court order putting in place an injunction that has been protecting Trump from Smith’s embarrassing information since the start of 2025 and Trump's second term as president.

"This Notice is provided to disclose this alleged violation of the Order by a now-former Department of Justice employee to enable this Honorable Court to consider further action and sanction as deemed appropriate," the filing said.

“This Notice is provided to disclose this alleged violation of the Order by a now-former Department of Justice employee to enable this Honorable Court to consider further action and sanction as deemed appropriate,” the attorney’s argue.

It is up to Cannon to act — but if she does it will be an ironic slap to an alleged document thief who stole records related to Trump's own theft of documents case.

Lineberger has pleaded not guilty to theft, record alteration, and concealment charges,” reports Law and Crime.

When Donald Trump won the United States' 2024 presidential election, it marked a major turning point in then-special counsel Jack Smith's two federal cases against him: the election interference case and the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case. Smith, citing the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president, asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election case — a request she granted "without prejudice."

The "without prejudice" part is important, as Chutkan wasn't attacking the merits of the case, but granting Smith's request to adhere to DOJ policy. And Smith was gone from DOJ by the time former President Joe Biden left the White House.

Smith kept a relatively low profile during the early months of Trump's second presidency, but in recent months, he has been speaking out about those cases. And now, MS NOW's Steve Benen stresses in a May 7 column, he is also calling out the direction DOJ has taken since Trump's return to the White House.

"As the prosecutor exited the stage," Benen says of Smith's resignation from DOJ before Biden left office, "he did so with relative silence. In fact, even many of those who followed his cases closely didn't even know what his voice sounded like, because Smith said so little, allowing his work to do the talking. But nearly a year and a half later, the former special counsel has made the transition from a lawyer who preferred silence to one who has quite a bit to say."

The New York Times' Glenn Thrush reported that Smith, at a private event in Washington, DC on April 20, described the Trump-era DOJ as "corrupted" and warned, "We have a Department of Justice today that targets people for criminal prosecution simply because the president doesn't like them…. We have a department that fails to investigate cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient narratives the president would like to press."

Benen argues that Smith's "condemnation of the" Trump-era DOJ "wasn’t just compelling given the degree to which it has been politically corrupted — it was also part of a larger pattern."

"Last fall, for example, the former special counsel delivered remarks at George Mason University and sounded the alarm about intensifying threats to the U.S. legal system," Benen observes. "'My career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today, it is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes,' Smith said. Around the same time, he appeared in a video, lending his public support to DOJ employees who had been fired or forced out by the Trump administration."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer continues, "Soon after, during an interview with former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London, Smith condemned Republican criticisms of his work as 'ludicrous,' adding, 'I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it's hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.' More recently, Smith also delivered private and public testimony before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, which also didn't do his Republican detractors any favors. Smith was not able to make his case in court, but with increasing frequency, he's bringing his arguments to the public in forceful and unrestrained ways."