WATCH: Lawmakers spar over taxpayer-funded Trump investigation

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

Lawmakers on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee equally slammed and praised former special counsel Jack Smith over his involvement in prosecuting President Donald Trump’s alleged scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“It’s all about politics,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said. “To get president Trump they were willing to do just about anything.”

Jordan took aim at the cost of Smith’s inquiry into President Trump. The Department of Justice spent $35.7 between November 2022 and March 2024 on work related to Smith’s office pursuing Trump, according to multiple expenditure reports.

Jordan questioned Smith about a specific $20,000 payment to a confidential source involved in his office’s investigation.

“It was me approving a payment by the FBI to a confidential human source,” Smith said. “I do not know the identity of the source.”

“Thirty-five million dollars and the you’re giving money to people the country doesn’t know who they are and you’re giving their hard earned money to these folks,” Jordan said.

“My recollection and understanding is the payment, the $20,000 that I approved was for a confidential human source to assist in the review of video and photographic evidence showing people who were attacking the Capitol, attacking police officers, obstructing the proceeding,” Smith said.

Smith appeared to indicate the person was hired to determine whether rioters at the U.S. Capitol came from Trump’s speech on the ellipse.

Jordan criticized Smith and others in the Biden administration’s Department of Justice for accessing phone records of prominent Republicans in Congress, including himself. Jordan accused Smith of foregoing proper legal procedures to hinder Trump from running for reelection in 2024.

“In spite of the weaponization efforts of Jim Comey, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis and Jack Smith we the people saw through it all and we elected Trump twice,” Jordan said.

Democrats on the committee focused on Smith’s personal character and asserted his record of bipartisan litigation.

“You pursued the facts, you followed the law, you stuck with extreme caution to every rule of professional responsibility,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “You had the audacity to do your job.”

Raskin said that Smith collected phone records from members of Congress to determine the level of involvement with Trump’s election threats. He said the records did not include the contents of phone calls made between members of Congress and the president.

“It was Trump who chose to call them to advance his criminal scheme,” Raskin said. “If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for them too.”

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., accused Trump of misusing taxpayer dollars to “rewrite history.” He referred to the White House’s recent launch of a website detailing the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and afterwards.

The website claims former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spent three years and $20 million to pursue President Trump.

“Donald Trump is hellbent on misusing taxpayer dollars in a feeble attempt to rewrite his criminal history and the history of what happened on January 6th, 2021,” Johnson said.

Trump watched the proceedings and criticized the former special prosecutor.

“Deranged Jack Smith is being DECIMATED before Congress,” the president wrote in a social media post. “It was over when they discussed his past failures and unfair prosecutions. He destroyed many lives under the guise of legitimacy.”