House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has formally referred former Special Counsel Jack Smith to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, accusing him of knowingly making false statements during sworn testimony before Congress last year. The move represents a significant escalation in the long-running effort to hold Smith accountable for his conduct during the politically charged investigations he led against President Trump.
In a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Jordan wrote that the committee found strong evidence that Smith made willfully and intentionally false statements during his December 17, 2025, deposition, statements that directly contradict documents subsequently obtained by lawmakers. The referral marks the culmination of months of scrutiny into how Smith’s team conducted its investigation into the 2020 election and its aftermath.
At the heart of the referral is testimony Smith gave regarding subpoenas his team issued for the phone records of more than a dozen Republican members of Congress. During his deposition, Smith stated that his investigators only obtained toll records, meaning basic call logs, and did not receive the actual content of any text messages exchanged by lawmakers. New documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee appear to directly contradict that claim.
According to those newly uncovered records, Smith’s team subpoenaed the National Archives and Records Administration and obtained text messages exchanged between Trump era White House staffers and dozens of members of Congress, including at least 44 lawmakers whose communications were reviewed as part of the sprawling investigation. That revelation has infuriated Republicans who say they were misled about the scope of the surveillance their own communications were subjected to.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley — whose own communications were reportedly among those reviewed — has vowed to bring Smith before his committee in the coming months to hold him accountable directly. Grassley’s involvement adds another layer of institutional weight to the growing effort to force answers from the former special counsel.
Jordan’s referral notes that during the Biden-Harris Justice Department’s investigation into the 2020 election — dubbed Arctic Frost internally — prosecutors pursued toll record subpoenas targeting Republican lawmakers while using gag orders to keep the subpoenas hidden from public view. Internal DOJ attorneys reportedly warned at the time that the actions might raise constitutional concerns, yet prosecutors moved forward regardless, according to the committee’s findings.
The Justice Department wasted little time responding to the referral, confirming through a spokesperson that it will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct. That swift response reflects a very different posture from the department under previous leadership, and it comes as Blanche — formerly one of President Trump’s own defense attorneys — awaits Senate confirmation as attorney general.
Blanche had already signaled an openness to investigating Smith weeks earlier, telling Senator Josh Hawley during his confirmation hearing that the department takes congressional testimony very seriously when asked directly whether he had considered investigating Smith for perjury. That exchange foreshadowed the referral that would follow.
President Trump, who has long called for Smith to be jailed for what he views as a politically motivated prosecution, posted about Jordan’s referral, asking simply whether justice was finally at hand. The president’s frustration with Smith is well documented, given that Smith led the federal cases against him before those charges were ultimately dismissed following Trump’s return to the presidency.
Smith’s attorneys have pushed back forcefully against the referral, calling the effort a chilling attempt to weaponize the justice system against a career, nonpartisan public servant who they say faithfully followed the facts and the law throughout his tenure. They argue that Smith’s answers to the committee were, in their words, unimpeachably truthful, and that he was asked specifically about toll records rather than the National Archives subpoena that produced the text messages in question.
Democrats on the committee, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin, have similarly dismissed the referral as a distortion of the facts.
Raskin argued that Republicans never actually asked Smith the specific question their entire theory rests upon, namely whether the text messages were found on White House officials’ phones or whether Smith’s team ever reviewed messages sent by members of Congress directly.
Raskin went further, suggesting that Republican lawmakers are only now reacting because they realized their own communications with the Trump White House became presidential records subject to preservation under the Presidential Records Act. That argument, however, has done little to slow the momentum behind the referral among House Republicans.
It is important to note, as media outlets covering the story have pointed out, that congressional criminal referrals are nonbinding recommendations rather than legal mandates. The Justice Department retains full discretion over whether to open an investigation or pursue charges, meaning Smith’s ultimate legal fate remains far from certain despite the committee’s action.
Still, the referral fulfills a long standing goal among conservatives who have argued for years that Smith operated with a troubling disregard for the rights of the very lawmakers his investigation touched. The revelation that his team reviewed communications from dozens of sitting members of Congress, all while assuring the committee otherwise, has only deepened those suspicions.
This is not the first time Trump-era Justice Department critics have found themselves the target of criminal referrals or prosecutions since the president’s return to office.
Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James have both faced criminal charges in recent months—part of a broader pattern that has drawn both praise from conservatives who see long overdue accountability and criticism from Democrats who call it political retribution.
For conservatives, the Smith referral represents another chapter in what they view as a necessary reckoning for officials who used their positions to pursue politically charged investigations against the president while allegedly cutting corners on transparency with Congress. The fact that Smith’s own team pursued subpoenas against sitting Republican lawmakers, using gag orders to conceal that activity, only reinforces that narrative.
Whether the Justice Department ultimately pursues charges will likely hinge on how prosecutors interpret the specific wording of Smith’s deposition testimony and whether it meets the legal threshold for false statements under oath.
Legal experts note that proving willful intent to deceive, rather than simple imprecision in answering a complex question, can be a difficult bar to clear in court.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the referral ensures that Smith’s conduct during the 2020 election investigation will remain under intense scrutiny for months to come, with the Senate Judiciary Committee also expected to pursue its own further examination of the matter. Grassley’s promise to bring Smith before his committee suggests this story is far from over.
