Former Special Counsel Jack Smith was back on Capitol Hill Tuesday where he was grilled over how far his investigations of President Donald Trump reached into Congress, Republican groups, and even the media.
As reported on Wednesday’s AM Update, the fiery hearing featured hours of pointed questioning over the Biden-era prosecutor’s probes of the then-former president that led him to bring two federal cases against Trump over the 2020 election and classified documents found at at Mar-a-Lago.
Neither case ever reached trial. Smith dropped the election interference allegations after Trump won reelection in 2024, while U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had already dismissed the documents case after ruling the special counsel was unlawfully appointed.
The Fiery Hearing
Now, Congressional Republicans are examining how far Smith’s investigation reached beyond the president himself. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) used the hearing to lay out newly released records showing Smith’s team obtained and reviewed text messages involving 44 members of Congress–Republicans and Democrats–while collecting communications from 87 phones used by officials in the first Trump White House.
Sen. Grassley also released 197 subpoenas issued by Smith’s team that sought testimony, communications, and records tied to more than 430 Republican individuals and organizations. Those records also extended to communications involving nearly 50 journalists at more than a dozen news organizations, including Fox News, CNN, CBS, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Reuters, The Federalist, and the Associated Press.
Smith rejected Republicans’ accusation that any of it amounted to political targeting. The former special counsel told senators he still stands behind both prosecutions and insisted politics played no role in his decisions. He claimed he would bring the same cases today against a former president of either party.
The sharpest fight of the day centered on those congressional phone records. Smith argued his team was not investigating the lawmakers themselves but rather trying to establish who President Trump and others prosecutors considered his co-conspirators were contacting around January 6, 2021.
But Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) wasn’t buying it. He accused Smith of violating the Speech and Debate clause of the U.S. Constitution, which protects members of Congress from civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution for legitimate legislative acts. Here’s a bit of the exchange:
KENNEDY: Did you take Con Law?
SMITH: I’m sorry, Senator.
KENNEDY: Were you in the quad playing frisbee during Con Law at Harvard Law School?
SMITH: I did take constitutional law, yes.
KENNEDY: Well, then you had to know it violated the speech and debate clause. In fact, when you went to Judge Boasberg, you didn’t even tell him you were seeking the phone records of members of Congress, did you? Because you knew he wouldn’t agree. He would say, ‘Hey, counselor, anybody who knows a law book from a J.Crew catalog knows that this violates the Constitution.’ But you didn’t tell him, did you?
Smith did not give a yes or no answer, instead claiming his team sought “non-disclosure orders.” The answer did not appease the senator.
“You didn’t tell him,” he alleged. “But you’re unbiased. You have no personal feelings. You make me want to throw up in my mouth.”
Awkward Moment
Then came one of the day’s more embarrassing moments. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) attempted to confront Smith over what he suggested was evidence placing the special counsel in Atlanta in February of 2024 (i.e. during the time Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was separately prosecuting Trump).
The senator pointed to a series of text messages from Smith’s team that he claimed confirmed Smith was in Atlanta and attended an NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors on February 3, 2024. That happened to be the day after Willis admitted to having a “personal relationship” with Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade. That “relationship” would ultimately derail the Georgia case against Trump.
As it turned out, Smith wasn’t in Atlanta attending a Hawks-Warriors game; instead, he was watching an NCAA women’s basketball game between Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes–sometimes referred to as the Hawks–and the University of Maryland’s Terrapins.
Democrat Senator and Minnesota gubernatorial hopeful Amy Klobuchar wasted no time trying to make her GOP colleague look foolish, jumping in chastise Schmitt over not examining the text exchange more closely. She later chimed in on X with “glad one of us knew the difference between the Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes” and “facts matters.”
Megyn, however, was curious which “facts” the senator actually cares about: “Yes, if only that same one of you knew the difference between a man and a woman when it comes to sports. But the truth is, while Eric Schmitt has reliably stood up for girls and women’s rights against the trans lobby, Amy Klobuchar has made clear she’s fine with boys co-opting girl sports in Minnesota. Save your sanctimony, madam.”
Settling Scores
One confrontation turned personal. Interim Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) pressed Smith over investigators obtaining the phone records of her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and questioned how his office justified keeping the subpoena secret. “Mr. Smith, do you really believe that Lindsey was going to destroy evidence that was not even in his possession,” she asked.
“No, I believe your brother was a patriotic public servant,” he replied.
So, Graham pressed once more. “Then, why does the gag order say that disclosure of the subpoena would result in ‘destruction of or tampering with evidence,'” she inquired.
“Because disclosure of that subpoena could result in Donald Trump attempting to intimidate witnesses as he had before and after, we had an ample basis,” Smith claimed.
Graham was not satisfied with the allegation. “The evidence in question belonged to Lindsey and was in the possession of Verizon. It makes absolutely no sense that anyone would be able to destroy the evidence you are seeking,” she said.
“Do you know what I think? I think you’re just trying to bully my brother and other allies of President Trump,” Graham added. “You caused my brother and a lot of other senators a lot of stress, and that makes me sick.”
It remains to be seen whether the congressional investigations will yield a criminal referral or charges.
You can get all the day’s headlines by tuning into AM Update with Megyn Kelly on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch AM Update on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111).