Jack Smith, the former U.S. special counsel who led high-profile investigations into Donald Trump, has found himself back in the national spotlight—this time as both a fierce critic of the Justice Department and a target of mounting political retribution. In a candid interview recorded on October 8, 2025, at University College London and posted online the following week, Smith did not mince words about what he sees as deep flaws in the Department’s recent conduct, particularly in cases involving prominent political figures.
Speaking with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, Smith excoriated the Justice Department’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. “The apolitical prosecutors who analyzed this said there wasn't a case, and so they brought somebody in who had never been a criminal prosecutor on days' notice to secure an indictment a day before the statute of limitations ended,” Smith stated, according to the interview transcript cited by The Washington Post. He went on to argue that the process “reeks of a lack of process,” raising questions about the motivations behind the prosecution.
Smith’s criticisms extended to Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom he accused of being “driven to achieve certain outcomes, no matter what,” especially in the case against Comey, who faces accusations of lying to Congress. According to Smith, the rush to indict—just before the statute of limitations expired—was a sign that proper legal procedures had been abandoned in favor of political expediency.
This isn’t the first time Smith has been at the center of political storms. He previously led the Justice Department’s probes into Donald Trump, investigating the former president’s actions after the 2020 election and his handling of classified records after leaving office. Both investigations resulted in criminal charges, to which Trump pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. But after Trump’s reelection, Smith’s cases were put on hold, following the Department’s longstanding policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. Smith subsequently left the Department.
Smith’s recent remarks were made before another bombshell: the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud by the same U.S. attorney’s office that brought charges against Comey. Smith didn’t comment directly on James’s case, but his critique of the Department’s overall direction was unmistakable.
He also took aim at the Department’s decision to drop a corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for his cooperation with the administration’s immigration policies. “Nothing like it has ever happened that I've ever heard of,” Smith told Weissman, suggesting such a move was unprecedented in his experience.
Smith reserved some of his harshest criticism for what he called the Department’s failure to investigate the so-called “Signal-gate” scandal. The controversy involved Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and former national security adviser Mike Waltz, who allegedly used the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss planned military strikes in Yemen with other top national security officials. “There is no administration, Republican or Democrat, that does not open an investigation in that situation,” Smith insisted. “Nothing—where the lives of servicemen are put at risk, zero—never happens.”
Despite his outspoken criticism, Smith was adamant that his own investigations into Trump were not politically motivated. “The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case or who got chosen [to work on the case] is ludicrous,” he said. He emphasized that his entire team of investigators and staff had been fired by the Trump administration. “Everybody who worked on my team was fired, not just the lawyers, but the administrative staff as well.” Smith added that hundreds of Justice Department attorneys and staff have left in recent years because they were “being asked to do things that they think are wrong, and because they're not political people, they're not going to do them.”
Smith’s return to public life has not gone unnoticed by his critics. On October 17, 2025, Republican lawmakers suggested that Smith should lose his law license, as reported by Axios. The call followed mounting scrutiny of Smith’s conduct, fueled in part by Trump’s own encouragement of prosecutors to investigate Smith. One of Trump’s allies has even summoned Smith to testify in a congressional probe, according to Bloomberg. The moves come amid what many see as a broader push by the Trump administration to press charges against perceived political enemies—a strategy that has only deepened partisan divisions over the Department’s role.
In August 2025, the Office of the Special Counsel—distinct from Smith’s former position—launched an ethics probe into his handling of the Trump investigations. Smith, for his part, has dismissed the inquiry, insisting there is “no basis for the investigation.”
Smith’s critics, particularly among Republican lawmakers, argue that his actions as special counsel have undermined public trust in the Justice Department. They point to what they see as a pattern of politically motivated prosecutions and question the impartiality of Smith’s investigations. Some have gone so far as to suggest that Smith’s law license should be revoked, a move that would be highly unusual and fraught with political overtones.
Supporters of Smith, however, argue that his willingness to criticize the Department—even when it means taking on powerful figures within his own former agency—underscores his commitment to legal principle over political loyalty. They note that Smith has consistently defended the independence of career prosecutors and has spoken out against what he sees as the politicization of justice. In his interview with Weissman, Smith insisted that the real problem lies with those who are willing to bend the law for political ends, not with those who enforce it without fear or favor.
The debate over Smith’s legacy and the future of the Justice Department comes at a time of heightened political tension in Washington. With Trump back in the White House and pushing for investigations into his opponents, the Department finds itself under intense scrutiny from all sides. Some see the recent prosecutions of figures like Comey and Letitia James as evidence of a new era of political retribution, while others argue that the Department is simply enforcing the law without regard to status or party.
For Smith, the stakes are personal as well as professional. He remains a polarizing figure, admired by some for his tenacity and independence, reviled by others as a symbol of partisan overreach. As he faces calls for his disbarment and a potential congressional grilling, Smith’s own words may offer the best insight into his motivations: “The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case or who got chosen [to work on the case] is ludicrous.”
With the Justice Department’s actions and Smith’s future both hanging in the balance, the coming months promise to be anything but quiet. The story of Jack Smith—a prosecutor caught in the crossfire of America’s political battles—remains far from over.
