Jack Smith’s testimony on Trump’s role in the January 6 riot: “most culpable and most responsible person”

Jack Smith is getting his opportunity to testify about Donald Trump’s participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Former special counsel Jack Smith already had a closed-door deposition on Dec. 17, 2025, in which he delivered a shocking assessment of former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, asserting - in no uncertain terms - that the violent breach would not have unfolded as it did without Trump’s conduct in the final weeks of the 2020 election contest.

Smith’s testimony, given on Dec. 17 to the House Judiciary Committee and made public on New Year’s Eve, provides one of the most detailed accounts yet from a senior law enforcement official about the evidence behind the Department of Justice’s now-discontinued cases against Trump.

The cases, which included charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results and mishandling classified documents, were dropped after Trump returned to the White House following the 2024 election, due to Justice Department policy prohibiting prosecution of a sitting president.

Trump ”by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy”

Throughout his hours of testimony, Smith repeatedly rejected Republican claims that the investigations were politically motivated. He defended his team’s methods, including the lawful collection of phone metadata from lawmakers who communicated with Trump on January 6, and argued that the evidence, in his view, met legal standards for prosecution.

“The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol, part of this case, does not happen without him. The other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit," he said.

Smith pointed to Trump’s repeated public assertions that the election was stolen, his encouragement of supporters to come to Washington, and his delayed response to the violence that erupted as certifying lawmakers attempted to finalise President Joe Biden’s victory. “He made false statements to state legislatures, to his supporters in all sorts of contexts and was aware in the days leading up to Jan. 6th that his supporters were angry when he invited them and then he directed them to the Capitol,” Smith explained.

“Now, once they were at the Capitol and once the attack on the Capitol happened, he refused to stop it. He instead issued a tweet that without question in my mind endangered the life of his own vice president,” he added.

“And when the violence was going on, he had to be pushed repeatedly by his staff members to do anything to quell it.”

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