Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two criminal cases against Donald Trump, spoke out against the Trump administration in a rare interview posted Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith, who resigned from the Justice Department in January shortly before Trump returned to office as president, warned that attacks on public servants would have an \u201cincalculable\u201d cost on the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants \u2014 I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we \u2014 it\u2019s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us,\u201d Smith said in an interview last week with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman at University College London Faculty of Laws, where Weissman is a visiting professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reached for comment on Smith’s interview, the White House said, \u201cThe Trump Administration will continue to deliver the truth to the American people while restoring integrity and accountability to our justice system.\u201d The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith’s investigation led to two indictments against Trump, one for his handling of classified documents and another for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump denied all wrongdoing and blasted both cases as politically motivated “witch hunts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, dismissed the classified documents case on the grounds that Smith’s appointment was illegal. Smith dropped the 2020 election case after Trump’s November win, citing DOJ policy on prosecuting sitting presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a report released before he resigned in January, Smith said Trump \u201cinspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence\u201d on Jan. 6, adding he believed Trump would have been convicted for his acts had he not been re-elected president last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since he assumed office in January, Trump has repeatedly blasted Smith, calling him \u201cderanged.\u201d House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked Smith on Tuesday to testify about his prosecutions of Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his interview with Weissman, Smith warned of threats to the independence of the judiciary, saying judges and prosecutors \u201cshould not be thinking of their jobs as popularity contests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey need the room and space to make decisions that some people might not like,” Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Justice Department under Trump has taken swift action against people who worked on the criminal and civil cases against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who oversaw a civil case against Trump and his businesses, was indicted last week on bank fraud charges. The Justice Department also last month indicted former FBI Director James Comey, who clashed with Trump during the president\u2019s first term over the DOJ investigation into the Trump campaign\u2019s ties to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump suggested in a Truth Social post on Sunday that Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who worked on Trump\u2019s first impeachment trial, could also be a target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration has also forced out several senior FBI officials who worked on cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including special agents involved in Smith\u2019s investigations of Trump. The FBI last week also took action against three special agents who worked in connection with Smith\u2019s probes after GOP senators said the FBI analyzed personal cellphone data of nine congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Describing his first job in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Smith said it would have been inappropriate to bring or not bring a case for political reasons, saying the suggestion alone would have gotten him tossed \u201cout a window.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf I said, \u2018Hey, I wasn\u2019t going to bring this case, because it\u2019s not a legitimate case on the facts and law, but I saw that he was an enemy of the [district attorney], and maybe we shouldn\u2019t bring it.\u2019 My boss, my first boss, he would have tossed me out a window. Right? Tossed me out a window,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith spoke about his time as chief of the Justice Department\u2019s Public Integrity Section, which is charged with fighting public corruption, saying that while he worked there, he was unaware of the politics of his subordinates \u201cbecause it was entirely irrelevant to our work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith, noting that he worked in the Justice Department for years during both Republican and Democratic administrations \u2014 including as an acting U.S. attorney during the first Trump administration \u2014 made note of New York Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 corruption case, which a federal judge dismissed in April at the request of the Justice Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision came after the Trump administration moved to dismiss the charges in February, shortly after Adams agreed to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to operate at New York\u2019s Rikers Island jail. The move prompted the resignations of multiple federal prosecutors who refused to follow the Justice Department\u2019s orders to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNothing like what we see now has ever gone on \u2014 this case in New York City, where the case against the mayor was dismissed in the hopes that he would support the president\u2019s political agenda. I mean, just so you know, nothing like it has ever happened that I\u2019ve ever heard of,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interview was one of the only public appearances Smith has made since leaving office. NPR reported that Smith delivered a lecture at George Mason University in September in which he warned that the rule of law “is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n