GOP's criminal referral against Jack Smith dismissed as 'meaningless' and 'laughably weak'

The House Judiciary Committee is referring former Special Counsel Jack Smith for criminal prosecution, but analysts are dismissing it.

On Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) alleged that Smith "knowingly made false statements" and referred him to the Department of Justice for prosecution. Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, alleged in a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that "strong evidence" appears to show Smith lied during a December 17 testimony.

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Smith is the prosecutor who brought two now-dismissed criminal cases against Trump relating to 2020 election interference and the retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The December 17 testimony mentioned in Jordan's letter refers to a closed-door House Judiciary deposition where Smith defended prosecuting Trump.

Despite Jordan's strongly worded criminal referral against Smith, legal analysts, journalists, and Democratic lawmakers are dismissing it.

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Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, slammed Jordan's criminal referral in a public statement. Raskin was particularly upset with Jordan for faulting Smith for not volunteering National Archives and Records Administration presidential information that Republicans never asked about.

"The Republicans fault Mr. Smith for not reading the minds of congressional investigators and for not volunteering information they didn't ask for," Raskin wrote. "This is absurd. Mr. Smith may be telegenic but he is not telepathic."

The House Judiciary Committee Democrats' X account similarly blasted the referral as "laughably weak" and "vindictive" in a post.

CNN political analyst Xochitl Hinojosa noted, "Trump called for Jack Smith's prosecution, so DOJ spent 20 months trying to find ANYTHING on Jack and failed," she wrote in a post on X. "Now we're seeing a desperate attempt to try to prosecute this longtime career prosecutor for following the facts and the law."

Around the time news of the referral came out, Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney simply reposted what he wrote in 2025: "Periodic reminder that criminal referrals from Congress, other than for contempt, are substantively meaningless."