Jack Smith, the special counsel who tried to bring down Donald Trump over classified documents, is still talking tough — even after his cases fell apart.
According to The New York Times, Smith made the remarks last month during a discussion at University College London with former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann. Smith said the evidence demonstrated Trump’s “willfulness”—a key legal element that distinguished Trump’s case from the separate investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, which resulted in no charges.
“The rule of law allows for different outcomes when the facts are different,” Smith said. “One of the major differences between the two cases is the obstructive conduct in the case that I investigated.”
He explained that to prove illegal possession of classified documents, prosecutors must show the defendant knowingly broke the law.
“In my particular case, we had tons of evidence of willfulness,” Smith said, pointing to Trump’s repeated public claims that the documents were his and his refusal to return them after investigators demanded their return.
Smith even cited Trump’s social media posts as proof of guilt — saying Trump’s insistence that the documents were his somehow showed “willfulness.” Critics say that sounds more like criminalizing free speech than proving a crime.
Trump fired back on Truth Social: “He is a CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL. A MAJOR LOWLIFE AND FAILURE.”
But the facts tell a different story: Biden walked free, Trump’s case got tossed, and Smith’s record of political prosecutions is in tatters.
Both of Smith’s cases have since been dismissed. A federal judge threw out the classified documents case in July 2024, and Smith dropped election-related charges after Trump’s November victory. The Justice Department’s own guidance bars the indictment of a sitting president, and the Supreme Court expanded presidential immunity in a ruling last year.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have referred Smith to the Justice Department for allegedly overstepping his authority by subpoenaing metadata from lawmakers’ phones during his probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
