The House Judiciary Committee may be inviting former special counsel Jack Smith to testify today in an attempt to undercut the legitimacy of Smith and his investigation, or in the attempt to catch him in a lie. But whatever House Republicans’ intentions, by inviting Smiths’ public testimony, they’re giving him the public platform to make the case that juries never got to hear.
The last time there was this much buzz for a special prosecutor’s testimony was July 2019. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller sat for two days of hearings before the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to present the results of his investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties and, crucially, the subsequent attempts to obstruct his work. There were certainly damning parts in Mueller’s two-volume report, including 10 episodes of potential obstruction of justice from Trump in trying to block or otherwise impede the Russia investigation. But what followed was a two-day snoozefest for anyone hoping for explosive testimony from Mueller.
Mueller had ultimately decided that he had no jurisdiction to indict a sitting president and had told reporters that if asked to testify before Congress, “any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis, and the reasons for the decisions we made.” Without the ability to carry forward a prosecution, as he told frustrated House Democrats, he couldn’t in good conscience present a case against Trump.
Smith, by contrast, successfully obtained multiple indictments against Trump. As he said in his closed-door deposition before the Judiciary Committee last month, his office “believed that we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt for all the charges and that we would have gotten convictions at trial.” On some levels, the story Smith will tell today is a familiar one. But unlike Mueller, whose stoniness worked against him when Republicans attacked his findings, Smith isn’t making himself an easy target for Jordan and his fellow Republicans.
This is a preview of Hayes Brown’s latest column. Read the full column here.
