Former Special Counsel Jack Smith spent years weaponizing the Justice Department in a relentless pursuit of President Donald Trump. Now the tables have turned. Smith is the one facing potential criminal prosecution.
Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (OH-04) referred Smith to the Department of Justice on Wednesday for possible criminal prosecution, accusing him of knowingly making false statements while testifying under oath before Congress.
The Justice Department confirmed it received the referral and said it “will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.”
#BREAKING: Chairman @Jim_Jordan referred former Special Counsel Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) July 23, 2026
The evidence appears to show that Jack Smith knowingly made false statements while testifying under oath before the Committee.
Read the letter ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/yxz5rF6d48
The six-page referral was sent to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Jordan argued that newly produced documents contradict testimony Smith gave during a December 17, 2025, deposition about his office’s access to communications involving members of Congress.
The allegation grows out of Arctic Frost, the Biden DOJ's politically charged investigation into the 2020 election that became Smith's case against Trump. During that probe, investigators secretly subpoenaed phone records from more than a dozen Republican lawmakers and obtained gag orders to keep those members in the dark.
During his deposition, Smith was asked whether his team had sought the contents of lawmakers’ text messages.
Q. Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from Members?
A. From Members?
Q. Yes.
A. No, I don’t recall that.
Q. Okay. It was just toll records?
A. Correct.
Smith was later asked whether the toll records obtained from members of Congress included the content of text messages. He answered, “No.”
That answer was technically narrow, and strategically so. The new documents show that Smith's office separately received the actual content of lawmakers' text messages through the National Archives, a distinction Smith never volunteered.
“The responses provided by Mr. Smith gave the impression that neither Mr. Smith nor his team had access to the content of Members’ privileged text messages,” Jordan wrote. “We now know this to be false.”
According to the referral, the National Archives sent Senior Assistant Special Counsel Thomas Windom 54 spreadsheets of text messages from Trump White House phones in August 2023. Windom reviewed them and forwarded the contents to other prosecutors on the team. Those messages included communications from 44 members of Congress, some potentially protected under the Speech or Debate Clause. Making it worse: The messages bypassed DOJ's filter team entirely, a safeguard that exists specifically to keep privileged material away from investigators.
Jordan’s referral does not rest solely on whether each answer Smith gave was technically accurate. It argues that Smith was specifically warned before his deposition that half-truths and incomplete answers could constitute false statements if he withheld information needed to make his testimony accurate.
National Security Scandal: Anti-Trump Jack Smith Team Violated Classified Info Rules
Smith's attorneys called his answers "unimpeachably truthful," and Democrat Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (MD-08) argued that investigators simply asked the wrong questions.
That will ring hollow. Smith was a seasoned federal prosecutor who knew exactly what Congress was investigating. When the moment came to be forthcoming under oath, he said nothing.
As Jordan put it:
"All individuals have an obligation to comply with a duly authorized congressional inquiry. Mr. Smith, a former public servant, is no different."
Jordan asked DOJ to determine whether Smith’s conduct warrants charges under the federal law covering materially false statements made during congressional investigations.
A criminal referral does not guarantee charges, but DOJ has confirmed it will investigate. Smith once wielded the full force of the Justice Department against a sitting president. He will now have to wait while that same department decides whether the rules he spent years enforcing against others apply equally to him.
Editor's Note: The Trump administration is exposing Barack Obama and his administration's Russian Collusion Hoax.
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