Former Biden special counsel Jack Smith was hit with a criminal referral after newly released Justice Department records appeared to contradict his sworn testimony about his investigation into President Donald Trump. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused Smith of misleading Congress about whether his investigators accessed the contents of lawmakers’ private text messages. Jordan has now asked the Justice Department to determine whether Smith knowingly made false statements and should face criminal charges.
The referral stems from Smith’s December 17th, 2025, closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee. Smith was questioned about investigative methods used during his probes into Trump, including the election-related case and the classified documents case. Republicans have focused heavily on Smith’s efforts to obtain communications and phone records belonging to members of Congress and Trump administration officials.
“All individuals have an obligation to comply with a duly authorized congressional inquiry. Mr. Smith, a former public servant, is no different,” Jordan wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Yet his testimony included intentionally false statements designed to obstruct the Committee’s oversight.” Jordan argued that the newly obtained records provided sufficient grounds for federal investigators to determine whether Smith violated the law.
As the House Judiciary Committee reported, Jordan specifically accused Smith of creating the impression that neither he nor members of his special counsel team had accessed lawmakers’ privileged text messages. “We now know this to be false,” the referral said. Jordan added that Smith’s testimony “can only be understood as an effort to thwart the Committee’s inquiry by intentionally making false statements and representations before Congress.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently released records showing that Smith’s investigators read text messages involving 44 current and former members of Congress from both parties, along with White House officials. The communications reportedly included messages sent between lawmakers and White House employees from October 2020 through January 20th, 2021. The records raised new questions about the breadth of Smith’s investigation and the Constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress.
Grassley’s office also found that Smith’s investigators apparently accessed messages before they were reviewed by a designated “filter team.” Such teams are used to separate potentially privileged or Constitutionally-protected communications from material that investigators may legally examine. According to the documents, that protective process was bypassed before members of Smith’s team directly accessed the messages.
During his deposition, Smith was asked whether he had examined the contents of lawmakers’ text messages during the Trump investigation. Smith answered, “No,” and maintained that his team had sought only telephone toll records. “Toll records were sought for historical telephone routing information, collected after calls had taken place, identifying the incoming and outgoing call numbers, the time of the calls and their duration,” Smith testified. “Toll records do not include the content of calls.”
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Jordan argued that Smith’s answers were materially misleading because investigators working under him had access to the actual contents of lawmakers’ communications. The referral does not itself constitute a criminal charge, and Smith has not been arrested, indicted, or convicted in connection with the allegations. Smith has denied wrongdoing, while Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, claimed Republicans were faulting Smith for failing to volunteer information that investigators had not specifically requested.
The criminal referral asks the Justice Department to examine whether Smith intentionally made false statements in violation of federal law. “We therefore believe that sufficient evidence exists for DOJ to examine whether Mr. Smith’s actions warrant a charge,” Jordan wrote. The Justice Department confirmed that it received the referral, telling Fox News Digital, “The Department can confirm receipt of the criminal referral from the House Judiciary Committee and will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.”
Watch Jack Smith freak out about President Trump coming after him: