Overview

• House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter on Tuesday setting an Oct. 28 deadline for Jack Smith to sit for a closed-door interview about alleged Justice Department politicization.
• Jordan’s demand follows reports that Smith’s team used 2023 grand-jury subpoenas to obtain limited phone toll records for nine Republican lawmakers, which reflected call metadata rather than content, with no indication the lawmakers were investigative targets.
• In recent committee interviews, former Smith aide Thomas Windom declined to answer multiple questions, and former counselor Jay Bratt invoked the Fifth Amendment roughly 75 times.
• In an Oct. 8 interview released this week, Smith called claims of political motivation “absolutely ludicrous,” said he had “tons of evidence” of willfulness and obstruction in the documents case, and noted his office complied with the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity ruling despite disagreeing with it.
• The Justice Department dismissed both Trump cases after his reelection in line with policy against prosecuting a sitting president, and the independent Office of Special Counsel has opened a Hatch Act inquiry into Smith.