Former special counsel Jack Smith said Thursday that under President Donald Trump, “We are facing an attack on the rule of law” and that he is “very concerned about what’s going to happen next election.”
Smith also said that a potential indictment of him by the Department of Justice “could happen” given Trump’s animus toward him for prosecuting the president in two separate criminal cases before Trump returned to the White House.
In his first media interview since resigning as special counsel, Smith told Nicolle Wallace on MS NOW’s “Deadline: White House” that “it angers me” to see public servants “demonized for doing their jobs” by the Trump administration for their work on cases seen as hostile to the president and his allies.
“I think it’s really important that we stand up for them and let them know that there are a lot of people out there who back them and who are with them,” Smith said.
The Rule of Law Under Threat
Smith, who resigned as special counsel 10 days before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2025, said the current situation is unlike anything he has seen in his career.
“I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he told Wallace.
He referred to “retribution prosecutions,” which have included indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James by the DOJ. A week after Trump was inaugurated, the DOJ fired four career prosecutors and others who worked with Smith on the prosecutions of Trump.
The Justice Department’s Crisis
Smith warned that the DOJ’s credibility is being eroded. “One of the problems right today, besides the retribution prosecutions, is that the Justice Department can’t do its job, right?” he said.
“If you go to court … and the judges don’t trust you, you can’t do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court,” Smith said. “And we have seen judges across the country say they can’t trust prosecutors anymore.”
Smith also expressed concern that young people are losing interest in working for the DOJ. He said that when he speaks to students at universities and law schools, he urges them not to give up on the institution.
The Cases Against Trump
Smith was tapped by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 as special counsel for two criminal investigations of Trump. He later obtained two grand jury indictments against the president.
In one case, Trump was accused of crimes related to his efforts to reverse his loss in the 2020 election to former President Joe Biden, a loss that was disrupted by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. In the second case, Trump was charged with crimes in connection with his retention of classified government documents after leaving the White House and with efforts to prevent officials from recovering them from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
A Trump-appointed judge dismissed the classified documents case in July 2024 after ruling that Smith had not been legally appointed special counsel. The DOJ dropped both cases after Trump was elected president that fall, citing a department policy barring sitting presidents from being prosecuted.
The Bottom Line
Former special counsel Jack Smith warned that the United States is facing an “attack on the rule of law” under President Trump and expressed concern about the next election. In his first media interview since resigning, Smith said career DOJ officials are being “demonized” and that the department’s credibility is being eroded. Smith prosecuted Trump in two criminal cases before Trump returned to the White House. The cases were dropped after Trump was elected.
