# Jack Smith **Jack Smith** is the Special Counsel appointed by Attorney General [[Merrick Garland]] in November 2022 to lead the two federal prosecutions of [[Donald Trump]] — the January 6 / 2020 election-subversion case and the [[Mar-a-Lago Documents Case]]. A career public-corruption prosecutor who had also served as a war-crimes prosecutor at The Hague, he wound both cases down after Trump's 2024 victory under DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president, and resigned in January 2025. ## What the record actually shows The cases ended without verdicts, which makes it easy to treat the whole enterprise as having produced nothing. That is wrong in a specific way worth stating. **Volume I** of the [[Jack Smith Report]] — the election-subversion volume — was released in January 2025 and is public. **Volume II** — the documents volume — is not, and the reason it is not is the story. ## The suppression of Volume II On **February 23, 2026**, Judge [[Aileen Cannon]] issued a **permanent** order barring the Justice Department — "current, former and future" officials — from releasing Volume II. Her stated grounds: - Smith was **"unlawfully appointed"** and therefore lacked authority - The defendants retain the presumption of innocence in a **dismissed** case - The volume contains grand jury testimony and discovery material under protective order - Prior special counsels released reports only after declining to prosecute or after convictions — not after dismissal by defendants who contested the charges throughout The first ground is the significant one. Cannon is not merely sealing a document; she is holding that the prosecutor who wrote it was never lawfully a prosecutor — a conclusion that, if it stands, reaches backward over everything the office did. **The appeal is live at the Eleventh Circuit**, brought by American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, with an amicus brief from Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic on behalf of First Amendment scholars. Their argument is narrow and probably strong: Cannon applied the wrong test for what makes something a **judicial record**. The question is not whether a document was publicly filed, reviewed in camera, or contains sensitive material — it is whether the court *used* the document to decide a substantive matter. By that test Volume II qualifies. A decision is expected later in 2026. ## The testimony Smith testified before the House Judiciary Committee on **January 22, 2026**. Because the documents case remained in active litigation, he confined himself largely to the election-subversion matter — where he said plainly: *"Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6."* That constraint is itself the point. The one official with complete knowledge of the documents investigation is barred by a court order from describing it, in front of a committee investigating him. ## The Senate testimony — September 29, 2026 Smith testified under oath before the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], chaired by [[Chuck Grassley]], on **Tuesday, September 29, 2026** — his first sworn appearance before the Senate and the second of the two 2026 hearings. He remained barred by [[Aileen Cannon]]'s order from discussing the contents of [[Jack Smith Report Volume II]], and said so on the record. What he did say was a flat restatement of the prosecutorial standard: > [!quote] Jack Smith, written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, September 29, 2026 > "I believe that there is no role for politics in the proper administration of justice. A prosecutor's decisions must be based on the facts and the law. The status, power, prominence, or political affiliation of the subject of an investigation must play no role in decisions to investigate, prosecute, or decline prosecution." He said the office's investigation "developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity," that grand juries in two separate districts had reached the same conclusion, and that "if asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that President was a Republican or a Democrat." He also stated: **"I myself have been threatened with jail by the President of the United States."** His closing framing is the part worth keeping: > [!quote] Jack Smith, September 29, 2026 > "History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It is often weakened by attacks on the institutions and public servants sworn to uphold it." ### The Hawks–Hawkeyes fabrication The hearing's defining moment was not Smith's testimony but [[Eric Schmitt]]'s attempt to impeach it. Schmitt asked whether Smith had attended a Golden State Warriors–Atlanta Hawks game on **February 3, 2024** — the premise being a secret meeting with Fulton County district attorney [[Fani Willis]] and her appointee [[Nathan Wade]], one day after their relationship became public. Smith denied it. Schmitt then produced a poster board, told Smith "I think you've already perjured yourself," and called him a "villain" and a "dirtbag." Smith's recollection was correct and Schmitt's was not. Smith had attended a **University of Maryland women's basketball game against the University of Iowa** on that date — the **Hawkeyes**, not the Hawks. Iowa beat Maryland at the Xfinity Center in College Park on February 3, 2024, with Caitlin Clark scoring 38 points before a sellout crowd of 17,950. [[Amy Klobuchar]] identified the confusion during the hearing and told Schmitt, "You had the teams wrong, sir." Broadcasters who reviewed game tape subsequently located Smith in the stands at the Maryland game. The documentary detail that settles it: the text on Schmitt's board, from Smith's deputy special counsel J.P. Cooney, read "Is 109 Row 1 reserved for Jack?" [[Talking Points Memo]] reporter Hunter Walker noted that State Farm Arena in Atlanta designates rows in section 109 by letter, not number; Maryland's arena uses numbers. The board never mentioned Atlanta at all. Schmitt took the claim to [[The Charlie Kirk Show]] after the hearing anyway, where host Andrew Kolvet congratulated him on it. See [[Eric Schmitt]] for the episode as a page-level entry. > [!warning] Sourcing > Smith's quoted words are taken from his **written statement to the committee**, the primary document linked in the sources block — not from HCR's rendering of the letter of September 29, 2026. The exchange with Schmitt is reconstructed from Talking Points Memo, *Rolling Stone*, the *Washington Examiner*, the *Missouri Independent* and Fox 5 New York, which agree on the sequence and the quoted phrases. ## Why it matters for the KB Smith is where several of the vault's threads terminate at once. He is the product of [[Merrick Garland]]'s special-counsel strategy and therefore the test of whether that strategy worked. He is the subject of the "weaponization" inquiries, which makes him the case study in how a prosecutor becomes the defendant of the political process. And Volume II is the vault's cleanest live example of **an official record that exists, is complete, and cannot be read** — the archival version of the transparency questions the vault tracks elsewhere as classification and declassification fights. Track the document itself at [[Jack Smith Report Volume II]]; this page is the person. ## See Also - [[Jack Smith Report Volume II]] — the suppressed volume and its litigation - [[Aileen Cannon]] — the judge who blocked it - [[Merrick Garland]] — who appointed him - [[Mar-a-Lago Documents Case]] · [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] — the two prosecutions - [[Donald Trump]] — the defendant in both - [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] — where he testified on September 29, 2026 - [[Eric Schmitt]] — the senator who accused him of perjury over the wrong basketball team - [[Speech or Debate Clause]] — why that accusation carried no consequence