Jack Smith faced renewed questions from lawmakers over his investigations involving Mr Trump, including claims by Republicans that he gave misleading evidence about congressional phone records.
The former special counsel had previously testified for more than eight hours in a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in December. During that session, he was questioned about subpoenas issued for toll records belonging to certain members of Congress.
Mr Smith told the committee that his team had not sought a search warrant for the content of lawmakers’ text messages, but had obtained toll records showing information about calls rather than their contents.
Republicans later accused him of lying after information released by the Senate Judiciary Committee in July showed that his team had sought and obtained text messages from the National Archives and Records Administration. The messages involved 44 members of Congress from both parties.
Mr Smith had addressed his decision to analyse Republicans’ phone records during a public appearance before the panel in January. He said the records were relevant to an investigation into an alleged conspiracy and described obtaining such information as “common practice” in complex cases.
“The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking, to influence who was seeking to help them,” he said.
He also defended the investigations involving Mr Trump, telling House members that he pursued unprecedented charges because “the evidence established that he willfully broke the law — the very laws he took an oath to uphold.”
