{"id":16833,"date":"2025-12-17T13:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-jack-smith-jumps-into-a-judiciary-minefield\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T13:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:02:52","slug":"capitol-agenda-jack-smith-jumps-into-a-judiciary-minefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-jack-smith-jumps-into-a-judiciary-minefield\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Jack Smith jumps into a Judiciary minefield"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Jack Smith wants to make his case against Donald Trump to Congress \u2014 but he\u2019s walking into a political and legal minefield.<\/p>\n

The Biden-era special counsel who brought the first and only federal criminal charges ever leveled against a former president is set to testify Wednesday morning<\/a> to members of House Judiciary.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high.<\/p>\n

Republicans are looking to portray Smith as a tool of a weaponized Justice Department \u2014 an allegation Republicans have brandished amid recent revelations Smith obtained phone records of at least eight GOP senators<\/a> as part of his probe into Trump\u2019s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they did all along, everything was wrong \u2026 a lot of things that were just not normal course of investigation or prosecution,\u201d Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Blue Light News. \u201cIf he comes in and doesn\u2019t answer questions, that\u2019s going to be a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judiciary Republican Troy Nehls of Texas, when asked about his ideal outcome for Smith\u2019s deposition, didn\u2019t hold back.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack Smith should be in jail \u2014 if not prison,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a crook \u2026 and he needs to be held accountable for all his games that he played.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats, meanwhile, are eager for more information about the investigations Smith had to abandon after Trump won reelection in 2024, bowing to the fact that sitting presidents cannot face federal charges while in office. Smith was investigating Trump for election subversion attempts and mishandling classified documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to hear exactly what he found, and what he did,\u201d said Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top House Judiciary Democrat.<\/p>\n

Peter Koski, a former top DOJ official and a member of Smith\u2019s legal team, said in a statement his client is \u201clooking forward to answering the committee\u2019s questions, sharing the legal basis for his investigative steps, and discussing the evidence of President Trump\u2019s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his unlawful possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Smith is bound by complex secrecy rules that limit what he is able to share with lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Raskin maintains Smith\u2019s task Wednesday is simple: \u201cHe just needs to come and tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Decision day for health care: <\/b>The House will vote Wednesday on the GOP health care package without an Affordable Care Act subsidy extension \u2014 and without any of the amendments moderates were seeking. Members are set to vote on the rule Wednesday morning, with the final vote on the bill expected Wednesday afternoon (assuming the rule is adopted). <\/p>\n

The Problem Solvers will also huddle with rank-and-file senators Wednesday to discuss a framework that includes an ACA extension and other health policy items for January.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Carr in the hot seat:<\/b> FCC Chair Brendan Carr\u2019s appearance before Senate Commerce Wednesday will be a telling moment for Republicans<\/a> as GOP committee members balance concerns over free speech with their reluctance to criticize the administration. <\/p>\n

Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday he plans to use the FCC oversight hearing to explore free speech concerns, though it\u2019s unclear how far most Republicans on the committee will go in relitigating Carr\u2019s threats against TV show host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this year. <\/p>\n

Kyle Cheney, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and John Hendel contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Smith wants to make his case against Donald Trump to Congress \u2014 but he\u2019s 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 Wednesday morning to members of House Judiciary. The stakes are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}