Jack Smith criticizes Trump for attack on rule of law

Former special counsel Jack Smith said Thursday that “We are facing an attack on the rule of law” under President Donald Trump and that he is “pretty worried about what’s going to happen in the next election.”

Smith also said a potential indictment of him by the Justice Department “could happen,” given his hostility toward Trump for suing the president in two separate criminal cases before Trump returned to the White House.

Smith told Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW “Deadline: White House” It “angers” me to see public officials “demonized for doing their jobs” by the Trump administration, whether for their work on cases viewed as hostile to the president and his allies or for other reasons.

“I think it’s really important that we stand with them and let them know that there are a lot of people who support them and are there for them, and that these are not people who are being targeted and fired for no reason just for doing their job,” he said.

Smith’s interview was his first with a media outlet since resigning as special counsel 10 days before Trump was sworn in as president on January 20, 2025.

A week after Trump was inaugurated, the Justice Department fired four career prosecutors and other prosecutors who worked with Smith on investigations into Trump.

“I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope than anything I have seen in my lifetime,” Smith told Wallace.

He cited “revenge investigations” that included the Justice Department indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“One of the problems today, besides revenge investigations, is that the Justice Department can’t do its job, right?” Smith said.

“If you go to court and the judges don’t trust you, you can’t do the basic things you need to do to represent the American people in court,” he said. “And we’ve seen judges across the country say they can’t trust prosecutors anymore.”

Smith said the young people he talked to were not as interested in working for the Justice Department as they were before.

“I tell people not to give up on this when I go to universities and law schools,” he said.

Smith, a long-time federal prosecutor, was appointed in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland as special counsel for two criminal investigations into Trump, who announced a few days earlier that he would seek a second non-consecutive term in the White House.

The special counsel later obtained two grand jury indictments indicting Trump.

In one case, Trump was charged with crimes related to his efforts to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election; The certification of Biden’s victory by Congress was interrupted by the attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.

For years, Trump continued to falsely claim that he won this election but was denied victory due to widespread voter fraud.

In the second case, Trump was charged with crimes related to his withholding of classified government documents after leaving the White House in January 2021 and his efforts to prevent authorities from obtaining those documents from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump denied wrongdoing in both cases.

In July 2024, Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case after ruling that Smith was not legally appointed as special counsel.

The Justice Department appealed that decision but abandoned that effort and also dismissed an election interference lawsuit after Trump was elected president in the fall because of department policy prohibiting prosecution of sitting presidents.