Former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led a Justice Department team investigating then-former President Donald Trump after his election loss in 2020 that resulted in two federal indictments, is prepared to testify before Congress, his law firm asserted this week.
In a letter addressed to House Judiciary Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), attorneys Lanny A. Breuer and Peter Koski of the global law firm Covington & Burling informed the elected officials that Smith “respectfully requests the opportunity to testify in Open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.”
[NOTE: The request for an “Open” hearing highlights the fact that witnesses testifying in “closed” hearings surrender to the committee chairpersons powerful discretion on which parts of their testimony are disclosed to the public. Witnesses often request open hearings to mitigate the risk of a false narrative emerging through partisan manipulation and selective release of testimony to the public.]
Smith sent his report detailing his investigations — including Volume One (“the election case”) and Volume Two (“the Classified Documents case”) — to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2025 during the final days of the Biden administration.
In the long letter to Garland accompanying the findings, submitted with his reports, Smith wrote: “Because Volume Two discusses the conduct of Mr. Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in the Classified Documents Case, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, consistent with Department policy, Volume Two should not be publicly released while their case remains pending.”
Accordingly, Volume One was released to the public, but Volume Two of Smith’s report — now in the possession of Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi — remains unreleased, despite the fact that the cases against Nauta and De Oliveira, which Smith cited as mitigating factors, have been dropped by Trump’s DOJ.
Smith held back Volume 2 of his report because his case against two low-level guys was still pending. A bad tradeoff: 1) they were unimportant, & 2) Trump’s DOJ promptly dropped the case anyway. Smith could have dropped it himself and released the report.https://t.co/uRdR705t4z pic.twitter.com/ikmD5uyoRx
— capitolhunters (@capitolhunters) October 9, 2025
In their letter to Grassley and Comer, Smith’s attorneys emphasize that Volume Two of Smith’s report remains concealed by the DOJ, writing that their client will need “guidance from the Department of Justice regarding federal grand jury secrecy requirements and authorization on the matters he may speak to regarding, among other things, Volume II of the Final Report of the Special Counsel, which is not publicly available.”
The attorneys also request that Smith himself, in order to deliver “accurate answers,” be given “access to the Special Counsel files, which he no longer has the ability to access.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have requested Volume Two be made public. In a letter to Acting Attorney General James McHenry in February — before Bondi was confirmed — Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) led a call to release Smith’s full findings publicly, citing as a goad a statement praising Trump’s purported transparency by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
[Leavitt’s statement, referenced in the request, was: “All of you once again have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history. There has never been a president who communicates with the American people and the American press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th president of the United States.”]
Raskin’s request for Volume Two of Smith’s report and its challenge to the Trump administration’s claims of transparency occurred before the administration, along with the FBI and DOJ, dug in its heels to prevent the release of the Epstein Files, another concealment that has stirred public disfavor.
Yet nine months into Trump’s second term, Smith’s report on Trump’s alleged theft of classified documents remains unseen, as the letter from Smith’s attorneys makes clear, by the American people — who paid for it.
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TODAY WOULD BE A GOOD DAY FOR JUDGE CANNON…
…TO RELEASE VOLUME TWO OF JACK SMITH’S REPORT
Editor’s Note: with respect to David Corn ( @DavidCornDC )
>>
— Talton Drumbo (@taltondrumbo) October 23, 2025
U.S. Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY), a Judiciary Committee member who signed Raskin’s request in February, said last week: “Trump… would have been convicted in both cases — this blatant corruption would make even Vladimir Putin blush.”
Trump is asking his own former personal attorneys, who he installed to run the DOJ, for a $230M taxpayer-funded payout.
Aside from the fact that his claim is meritless — he would have been convicted in both cases — this blatant corruption would make even Vladimir Putin blush.… pic.twitter.com/yGBzicdWHw
— Rep. Dan Goldman (@RepDanGoldman) October 22, 2025
Earlier in the week, Covington addressed accusations against Smith that his investigative process contained illegalities, notably about Smith’s access of certain GOP lawmakers’ phone activity records during his investigation. Smith’s lawyers told Sen. Grassley in a letter that Smith’s work was in strict keeping with the letter of the law.
The Return of Jack Smith, pt. II: The former Trump prosecutor’s lawyers offered the latest rebuttal to escalating attacks on his work — this time re: a grand jury subpoena for lawmakers’ phone activity records during the 2020 election probe https://t.co/yp1Krtc5g8
Letter:… pic.twitter.com/An9ePFtP9r
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) October 21, 2025
[NOTE: In a move widely considered unprecedented, Smith’s lawyers were directly targeted by a Trump executive order in February that pulled the security clearances of Covington lawyers and threatened to cut off the firm’s ability to do business with the federal government. A Covington spokesman said at the time: “We look forward to defending Mr. Smith’s interests and appreciate the trust he has placed in us to do so.”]