Former special counsel Jack Smith told senators on Tuesday that his one failing in his criminal cases against President Trump was that he didn’t talk enough and lost public support against false attacks.
He said he had been trained with the view that prosecutors do their speaking in the courtroom and don’t engage in a public debate for fear of undermining a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
But he said the president’s allies used that public vacuum to attack him, costing him crucial public support in his unprecedented quest to convict a former president.
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“One of the things I learned from this experience is that if you stick to that, and that alone, people can unfairly malign your team and unfairly malign you and your case, and you really can’t respond,” Mr. Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He said his investigation was done correctly, but he didn’t take chances to counter that.
“I limited myself in who I talked to about that,” he said.
But Sen. Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who asked Mr. Smith what mistakes he’d made, said the issue wasn’t too little Jack Smith, but too much.
“You’ve got to win in the courtroom, not public opinion,” Mr. Tillis said. “I think you undermined some of the credibility by going out there and being a spokesperson dealing with the politics of the prosecution.”
Mr. Smith, tapped by the Biden Justice Department to investigate and prosecute cases against Mr. Trump, brought two indictments.
One, in Florida, charged Mr. Trump — then between terms — with mishandling classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago home.
The other, in Washington, charged Mr. Trump with trying to thwart the transition of power by inciting the mob that intruded on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Florida case was tossed by a judge who said Mr. Smith was improperly appointed.
The Washington case suffered a setback after the Supreme Court ruled a president has absolute immunity for acts at the core of executive power, plus broad immunity for other official acts.
Mr. Smith was trying to revive that case — and appealing the Florida loss — when the 2024 election sent Mr. Trump back to the White House and ended both prosecutions.
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