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Jack Smith wants to tell Congress about his Trump investigations. That comes with risks.

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Jack Smith wants to make his case against Donald Trump to Congress — but he’s walking into a political and legal minefield.

The Biden-era special counsel who brought the first and only federal criminal charges ever leveled against a former president is set to testify behind closed doors Wednesday to the House Judiciary Committee.

To do so, he must navigate Byzantine secrecy laws and rules that limit what he can disclose to lawmakers. All the while, Republicans are looking to trip him up and incriminate him, to portray him as a tool of a weaponized Justice Department — an allegation they’ve brandished amid recent revelations that Smith obtained phone records of at least eight GOP senators as part of his probe into Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

“What they did all along, everything was wrong … a lot of things that were just not normal course of investigation or prosecution,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan said in an interview. “If he comes in and doesn’t answer questions, that’s going to be a problem.”

At the same time, Democrats are eager for further details about the investigations Smith had to abandon after Trump won reelection in 2024, bowing to the reality that sitting presidents cannot face federal charges while in office. Smith was investigating Trump for election subversion attempts and mishandling classified documents.

“We want to hear exactly what he found, and what he did,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. “He just needs to come and tell the truth.”

It’s all forcing Smith into a delicate, high-stakes dance with members of both parties. Democrats want to exploit any opportunity to discredit Trump, but Republicans are hoping to back Smith into a corner and portray him as a politically motivated activist.

“Jack Smith should be in jail — if not prison,” said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, when asked about his ideal outcome for Smith’s deposition. “He’s a crook. Jack Smith is a crook, and he needs to be held accountable for all his games that he played.”

Peter Koski, the former deputy chief of the DOJ Public Integrity Section and a member of Smith’s legal team at Covington & Burling, said in a statement Tuesday his client is “looking forward to answering the committee’s questions, sharing the legal basis for his investigative steps, and discussing the evidence of President Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his unlawful possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.”

Ultimately, though, there are restrictions for what Smith can and cannot tell members. He remains bound by grand jury rules that bar prosecutors from disclosing evidence that was never made public, at least without the permission of a court.

And in his capacity as a former Justice Department employee, he’s also limited in what he can share about his prosecutorial work. DOJ has provided an authorization letter to facilitate Smith’s testimony, according to a person granted anonymity to share details of private correspondence; however, the scope of the waiver is not clear.

A federal judge in Florida has also maintained an 11-month prohibition on the release of any details of Smith’s final report in the classified documents probe — a restriction Trump has urged her to maintain indefinitely — further narrowing what Smith is legally permitted to share about that investigation.

Complicating matters further is that Trump has called repeatedly for Smith’s prosecution, fueling the GOP appetite for incriminating Smith. That’s forcing Smith to weigh potential risks of criminal accusations against his desire to share information about his work with lawmakers.

Jordan has already sent out a criminal referral for Thomas Windom, a top Smith deputy, after the former senior assistant special counsel repeatedly declined to answer questions during his September deposition before investigators with the Judiciary Committee.

“They are trying to get him on the fast road to one of their ridiculous prosecutions,” Raskin said, of Smith.

House Judiciary Democrats are simultaneously pressing for the public release of Smith’s report detailing the results of his investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Earlier this month, committee Democrats filed an amicus brief to a federal court in Florida urging Judge Aileen Cannon to allow its release, citing the ongoing panel’s investigations and the need to balance out what is currently a “one-sided public record.”

“Neither the Committee nor the public can meaningfully evaluate Mr. Smith’s conduct, or assess the Committee’s accusations, without access to the report that memorializes what the Special Counsel actually did and why,” stated the amicus brief, submitted by the Democrats’ lawyers.

Cannon, a Trump appointee who once ruled Smith was put into the special counsel role unconstitutionally, has so far maintained that the report will not be released. This decision could further complicate Smith’s testimony before Congressional investigators, adding limitations to what he can share.

“Every other special counsel committee report has been released, and I believe every other special counsel or independent counsel has appeared before Congress publicly,” Raskin said, “so our Republican colleagues seem to fear the strength of Jack Smith’s advocacy and presentation.”

Jordan said he intends to ask Smith about the classified documents case, including the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022. He also wants Smith to answer for DOJ’s efforts to obtain phone data from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy as part of his probe.

Smith preferred that all this take place in a public setting, with his legal team pressing Congressional Republicans hard to let the testimony proceed in an open hearing. Jordan declined that request. The GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee, in contrast, has expressed an openness to facilitating such a hearing as it pursues its own Smith investigation, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he believed the House deposition will lay the groundwork for the Senate’s questioning.

“Before you interview somebody, before you hold a hearing — you need information, otherwise they run circles around you. You get nothing fruitful out of them,” said Johnson, who is co-leading the Senate’s probe into Smith’s investigations in his role as chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Johnson said he expected Jordan would eventually produce a transcript of Smith’s House deposition. “Those would be the documents we’ll use when we interview him,” he said.

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Congress

Mike Johnson says House can end government shutdown ‘by Tuesday’

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House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is confident Congress can end the partial government shutdown “by Tuesday” despite steep opposition from Democrats and turmoil within the GOP conference.

Johnson is under pressure to unite his caucus, with lawmakers raising concerns about funding for the Department of Homeland Security as the Trump administration faces scrutiny over its nationwide immigration crackdown that has at times turned violent.

House Republicans are hoping to take up the $1.2 trillion funding package passed by the Senate on Tuesday following a House Rules Committee meeting Monday. The partial shutdown began early Saturday.

GOP leadership in the House originally hoped to pass the bill under suspension of the rules, an expedited process that requires a two-thirds-majority vote, but Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Johnson on Saturday that Democrats would not help Republicans acquire the necessary support for the spending bill.

“I’m confident that we’ll do it at least by Tuesday,” Johnson said in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town, and because of the conversation I had with Hakeem Jeffries, I know that we’ve got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own. I think that’s very unfortunate.”

The Senate voted Friday to pass a compromise spending package after Senate Democrats struck a deal with President Donald Trump to extend DHS funding for two weeks. The move bought Congress more time to work out a compromise on reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after federal officers fatally shot two people in Minnesota earlier this month.

Speaking to host Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” Johnson acknowledged that “there’s been tragedies in Minnesota” — but he also blamed Democrats in the state for “inciting violence,” even as the Trump administration attempts to tamp down pressures in the state.

Johnson praised Trump’s decision to send White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis, a step widely seen as a deescalation from the aggressive tactics favored by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino.

“[Trump] was right to deputize him over that situation,” he said of Homan on NBC. “He has 40 years of experience in Border Patrol and these issues. So I think that this is going to happen, but we need good faith on both sides. Some of these conditions and requests that they’ve made are obviously reasonable and should happen. But others are going to require a lot more negotiation.”

Johnson pushed back in particular on Democratic calls to bar federal immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and require them to wear identification, telling Fox’s Shannon Bream: “Those two things are conditions that would create further danger.”

He also signaled an unwillingness to negotiate on Democratic demands to tighten requirements for judicial warrants for immigration operations.

Still, House Democrats remained opposed to passing the funding package as is, with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) saying Sunday: “I’m not just a no. I’m a firm no.”

“I just don’t see how in good conscience Democrats can vote for continuing ICE funding when they’re killing American citizens, when there’s no provision to repeal the tripling of the budget,” Khanna said in a Sunday interview with Welker on NBC. “I hope my colleagues will say no.”

Jeffries also signaled Sunday that a wide gap remains between his conference and House Republicans, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the House must reach an agreement on judicial warrants “as a condition of moving forward.”

“The one thing that we’ve said publicly is that we need a robust path toward dramatic reform,” Jeffries said on ABC’s “This Week.” “The administration can’t just talk the talk, they need to walk the walk. That should begin today. Not in two weeks, today.”

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Congress

Shutdown likely to continue at least into Tuesday

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The partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning is on track to continue at least into Tuesday, which is the earliest the House is now expected to vote on a $1.2 trillion funding package due to opposition from Democrats and internal GOP strife.

House Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday meeting of the House Rules Committee to prepare the massive Senate-passed spending bill for the floor. According to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the procedural measure teeing up a final vote would not happen until Tuesday, with final passage following if that is successful.

That’s one day later than GOP leaders had hoped. Their previous plan was to pass the bill with Democratic help under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.

But that plan was complicated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telling Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation Saturday that Democratic leadership would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, according to the two people and another person granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

The Tuesday plan remains tentative as GOP leaders scramble to navigate tensions inside their own conference, which could make passing the procedural measure difficult. Some conservative hard-liners, for instance, want to attach a sweeping elections bill to the package.

Jeffries said in a MS NOW interview Saturday that Republicans “cannot simply move forward with legislation taking a my way or the highway approach” while noting that House Democrats are set to have “a discussion about the appropriate way forward” in a Sunday evening caucus call — first reported by Blue Light News.

He did not rule out that Democrats might support the Senate-passed spending package, which funds the majority of federal agencies through Sept. 30 while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security — including controversial immigration enforcement agencies.

Democrats, Jeffries said, want “a robust, ironclad path to bringing about the type of change that the American people are demanding” in immigration enforcement.

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Here’s what federal programs are headed for a (possibly brief) shutdown

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Government funding is set to lapse at midnight Friday for the military and many domestic programs, but cash will continue to flow at a slew of federal agencies Congress already funded.

House leaders are aiming to send a funding package to President Donald Trump Monday, days after the Senate passed the legislation just before the deadline to avert a partial shutdown.

The effect on most federal programs is expected to be minor, and employees who are furloughed would miss just one day of work if the House acts on schedule — which is not assured.

This time, many of the services that have the greatest public impact when shuttered — like farm loans, SNAP food assistance to low-income households and upkeep at national parks — will continue. That’s because Congress already funded some agencies in November and earlier this month, including the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs, as well as military construction projects, the EPA, congressional operations, the FDA and federal science programs.

Still, the spending package congressional leaders are trying to clear for Trump’s signature next week contains the vast majority of the funding Congress approves each year to run federal programs, including $839 billion for the military.

Besides the Pentagon, funding will lapse for several major nondefense agencies beginning early Saturday morning.

That includes federal transportation, labor, housing, education and health programs, along with the IRS, independent trade agencies and foreign aid. The departments of Homeland Security, State and Treasury will also be hit by the shutdown.

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