BREAKING: Jack Smith's Closed Door Testimony Just Released

The Full never-before-seen transcript from the House Judiciary Committee can be downloaded here:

Smith Depo Transcript Redacted W Errata

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In mid December 2025, behind closed doors and away from the cameras, one of the most consequential legal figures in modern American politics did something Republicans hoped would crack open their narrative. Instead, it reinforced the very thing they have spent years trying to discredit.

Special Counsel Jack Smith sat for a deposition before the House Judiciary Committee, answering hours of questions about his investigation and prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

What emerged was not the smoking gun Trump’s defenders promised. It was something far less convenient for them, and far more dangerous to their talking points.

Smith did not flinch

Throughout the deposition, Smith made one thing unmistakably clear. He stood by the prosecutions. Fully. Unequivocally.

According to contemporaneous reporting and the structure of the transcript, Smith said that if presented with the same evidence today, he would make the same charging decisions again. That includes both the classified documents case and the election interference case.

This matters because it directly undercuts the claim that these prosecutions were rushed, improvised, or politically driven. Smith was not hedging. He was not qualifying. He was saying, plainly, that the cases were built on law and facts, not on who was running for office.

What Smith could not say was just as important

A key theme of the deposition was frustration. Not because Smith was evasive, but because federal law required him to be.

Grand jury secrecy rules, active court orders, and the continued withholding of portions of the Special Counsel report sharply limited what Smith was legally allowed to discuss. Over and over, Smith and DOJ counsel explained that certain questions simply could not be answered without violating the law.

That distinction is critical. Silence does not equal guilt. In this case, it equaled compliance.

Republicans alleged bias. Smith rejected the premise.

Republican members framed their questioning around the idea that Smith and the Department of Justice were acting as political actors. Smith rejected that framing outright.

He emphasized that the investigation followed standard prosecutorial procedures, standard evidentiary thresholds, and standard decision making processes. There was no special Trump exception, and no political calculus behind the charges.

The exchange exposed the real divide in the room. Republicans pushed a narrative of weaponization. Democrats pushed back by pointing out that law enforcement is not illegitimate simply because the subject of an investigation is powerful.

The missing report hung over everything

The deposition took place amid an unresolved fight over access to Smith’s full Special Counsel report, especially the still withheld sections of Volume II.

Democrats argued that meaningful oversight is impossible when lawmakers are barred from reviewing the very material they are supposedly questioning the Special Counsel about. That tension never left the room. It shaped the questions, the answers, and the limits of the discussion.

Closed doors, open spin

Smith had requested a public hearing, consistent with how previous special counsels have testified before Congress. Committee Republicans declined and opted for a closed door deposition instead.

The result was predictable. With no full public transcript released, selective leaks and partisan spin rushed in to fill the void. That was not an accident. When sunlight is blocked, narrative control becomes the real objective.

Why this testimony actually matters

Strip away the noise and the takeaway is straightforward.

Jack Smith’s deposition did not reveal misconduct by the Special Counsel. It reaffirmed that the Trump prosecutions were deliberate, evidence based, and legally grounded. It showed that many of Smith’s refusals to answer were driven by legal obligations, not evasion. And it confirmed that the real battlefield has shifted from courtrooms to congressional hearing rooms.

For Trump’s defenders, this was supposed to be a reckoning. Instead, it was a reminder.

The cases were not a mistake.
They were not improvised.
And they are not going away just because Congress would rather argue about them than read the evidence.