Yesterday, former Special Counsel Jack Smith sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and answered questions about the investigations that defined his tenure.

The hearing produced some extraordinary allegations.

Some were supported by records.

Some were disputed.

Some were simply wrong.

That distinction matters.

But beneath the partisan shouting was a more important question: What happens when the person who spent years investigating other people is finally required to explain his own actions?

Six moments from the hearing and the record surrounding it stand out.

But what the hearing ultimately demonstrated was a profound accountability gap. Jack Smith spent years demanding that other people remember what they did, explain their decisions, disclose what they knew, and accept responsibility for their actions.

Yet when those same questions were directed at him, the answers repeatedly became “I don’t recall,” “the judge approved it,” “the regulations required it,” “that was my staff,” or “that was the job.”

That does not prove every allegation made against him. It does, however, expose a basic contradiction: the person who was entrusted to investigate whether others had abused their power appeared far less willing to account for how his own power was exercised.

If accountability applies only to the people being investigated, it is not accountability at all. It is a one-way standard.

Let’s take a look at those key moments.

1. “I don’t recall” — while his team had the records

The claim

Smith was questioned about whether his office had obtained the actual content of text messages belonging to members of Congress.

His answer was that he did not recall his office seeking the content of lawmakers’ messages. He described the records obtained from members as toll records.

What was established

The Senate Judiciary Committee subsequently released records showing that Smith’s investigative team obtained and reviewed the content of messages involving 44 members of Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats. Committee Republicans allege that the material was accessed before going through the Justice Department’s required filter process for privileged information.

There is an important legal distinction: the records were obtained through investigative subpoenas directed at other targets, rather than through a direct search warrant of lawmakers’ phones.

So the evidence does not establish that Smith personally lied under oath.

What it establishes is a significant discrepancy between the scope of what his team actually obtained and the way Smith described the records in earlier testimony.

What this demonstrates

It demonstrates why “I don’t recall” cannot be the end of the inquiry.

If a witness under investigation gave an answer that appeared narrower than the documentary record, prosecutors would examine the discrepancy. They would ask what the witness understood, what he knew, who authorized the action and why his testimony differed from the records.

That same standard should apply to the investigator.

2. The judge signed the orders — but who asked for them?

The claim

One of the defenses surrounding the congressional-record investigation is that federal judges approved the government’s requests.

Judge James Boasberg signed nondisclosure orders associated with the investigation.

The implication is straightforward: the judge approved it.

What was established

The government’s investigators sought the subpoenas and nondisclosure orders. The judge reviewed and signed them.

Senate Republicans have alleged that Smith’s team failed to adequately inform the court that members of Congress were among the people whose records were being obtained. Smith’s side disputes the characterization of the investigation and maintains that the investigative steps were lawful and necessary.

The judge’s signature is therefore a fact.

So is the prosecution’s role in requesting the order.

What this demonstrates

A judicial signature does not erase prosecutorial responsibility.

A judge does not independently invent an investigative strategy. The government presents the request, the supporting information and the proposed legal mechanism to the court.

That means the relevant question is not simply:

Did the judge approve it?

It is:

What did the investigators ask the judge to approve, what did they tell the judge, and who made those decisions?

That is not an allegation of criminal misconduct.

It is the ordinary chain of responsibility in a criminal investigation.

3. “I acted independently” — but did Garland consult Biden?

The claim

Smith repeatedly defended himself by saying that his decisions were independent and that he received no political direction from the Biden administration.

He told the committee that he had informed Attorney General Merrick Garland that he intended to prosecute Donald Trump.

When asked whether Garland then consulted President Biden, Smith said he had “absolutely no idea.”

What was established

Smith says he made his prosecutorial decisions independently.

He has denied receiving political pressure from Biden, Harris or Garland.

There is no established evidence from this testimony that Biden personally ordered Smith to prosecute Trump.

There is also no evidence from Smith’s testimony establishing whether Garland did or did not discuss the prosecution with Biden.

Smith said he simply did not know.

What this demonstrates

This is where the distinction between independence and knowledge matters.

Smith can truthfully say that he made his own prosecutorial decision while also not knowing what conversations occurred above him.

But that means his testimony cannot resolve the broader question of whether anyone else in the administration discussed or influenced the investigation.

His answer is not proof of coordination.

It is also not evidence that no such conversation occurred.

It is an admission of the limit of his knowledge.

And that matters because the independence of the investigation has been central to Smith’s defense of it.

4. The oath he couldn’t remember

The claim

Smith was asked who administered his oath of office when he became special counsel.

He said he did not remember.

He was also asked why he executed another oath nearly a year later.

Again, he said he did not recall the details.

What was established

Smith was appointed special counsel in November 2022.

He later executed another oath and appointment affidavit in September 2023.

The Justice Department has provided an administrative explanation: Smith’s original appointment paperwork was missing a witness signature, and the Department subsequently had him execute corrected documentation.

There is no evidence presented here that the second oath was evidence of an improper appointment.

What this demonstrates

The significance is not the second oath itself.

It is the contrast between the importance of the position and Smith’s inability to recall basic details surrounding his appointment.

The special counsel was conducting an unprecedented investigation of a former president.

The oath was not a trivial document.

Yet when asked about it, his answer was essentially that he did not remember.

Again, that does not prove dishonesty.

It does raise a credibility question.

And credibility questions are precisely the kind of questions prosecutors routinely ask of other people.

5. The “flight risk” justification

The claim

During the hearing, Senator John Kennedy raised the government’s justification for keeping the congressional subpoenas secret.

He pointed to concerns about protecting evidence and witnesses and characterized the government’s reasoning as involving potential “flight risk.”

That is an especially inflammatory phrase because it can sound as though the government believed members of Congress themselves were preparing to flee.

What was established

The government’s justification was broader.

Investigators argued that disclosure could interfere with the investigation, including through destruction or alteration of evidence, witness interference or other forms of obstruction. The congressional oversight record documents the government’s concern about protecting the investigation from those risks.

The record therefore does not establish that investigators literally believed the members of Congress whose records were obtained were preparing to leave the country.

What this demonstrates

It does demonstrate something more important.

The government was asking a court to keep elected members of Congress from knowing that their communications had been obtained because investigators believed disclosure could compromise the investigation.

That is an extraordinary use of government power.

It deserves scrutiny regardless of whether the targets were Republicans or Democrats.

And this is where the larger issue of accountability becomes unavoidable.

Investigators are permitted to assess risk.

They assess whether people might destroy evidence.

They assess whether witnesses might be influenced.

They assess whether people might evade the government’s reach.

They do not simply accept someone’s explanation because that person says, I don’t remember.

The people exercising that power must therefore be willing to subject their own decisions to the same level of scrutiny.

6. The allegation that Smith was in Atlanta

The claim

Senator Eric Schmitt accused Smith of lying about his whereabouts and presented messages that he said placed Smith at an Atlanta Hawks game in February 2024.

The implication was that Smith had been in Atlanta at a time relevant to the controversy surrounding Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Schmitt accused Smith of perjury.

What was established

The accusation was wrong.

Smith had attended a University of Maryland women’s basketball game against Iowa in College Park, Maryland.

Iowa’s team is the Hawkeyes.

The Atlanta NBA team is the Hawks.

The evidence therefore supported Smith’s explanation, not the accusation that he had been secretly attending an Atlanta game.

What this demonstrates

This episode is important precisely because the accusation failed.

It demonstrates that the evidence has to control the story—even when the evidence hurts the person making the accusation.

Smith should not be presumed guilty because he said he did not remember something.

And Republicans should not be presumed wrong simply because they are investigating Smith.

The standard has to be the same in both directions.

What all of this adds up to

There is a temptation to turn this hearing into a simple story.

Smith was either a courageous prosecutor pursuing the truth or a partisan prosecutor abusing government power.

The actual record is more complicated.

The basketball accusation was wrong.

The second oath has an administrative explanation.

Smith denies political pressure.

The congressional-record investigation involved genuine legal and constitutional questions, but also real distinctions concerning how the records were obtained.

The judge did sign the orders.

And the evidence does not establish that Biden personally ordered Smith to prosecute Trump.

Those facts have to remain in the story.

But other facts remain as well.

Smith’s team obtained the content of communications involving 44 members of Congress.

His team sought nondisclosure orders surrounding the investigation.

Smith says he does not recall seeking the content of lawmakers’ messages.

He says he does not know whether Garland discussed the Trump prosecution with Biden.

He says he does not remember the circumstances of his oath.

And when responsibility for controversial decisions is questioned, the answers repeatedly move outward—to the judge, the regulations, the institutional process, or the limits of his own memory.

None of that proves a crime.

But it raises a much larger institutional question.

Who investigates the investigators?

This is the part that gets lost in the partisan argument.

Smith’s entire career in this period rested on the proposition that evidence matters more than political affiliation.

That is the right principle.

But it has to work in both directions.

If investigators are entitled to examine a person’s motives, memory, inconsistencies, communications and records, then investigators should expect the same questions when their own conduct is under examination.

If a person under investigation said, I don’t recall, and documents later showed that the person’s organization had in fact taken the action in question, that would not ordinarily end the inquiry.

It would begin another one.

Who knew?

Who authorized it?

What was the purpose?

What did the witness understand?

Why does the testimony differ from the record?

Those are not partisan questions.

They are the mechanics of accountability.

The real hypocrisy

The deeper problem is not that Jack Smith forgot something.

People forget.

It is not that every controversial decision he made was necessarily wrong.

It wasn’t.

And it is not that every accusation Republicans made at the hearing was true.

Some plainly were not.

The problem is the asymmetry of the standard.

The government Smith represented was empowered to treat other people’s explanations as potentially incomplete.

It could examine their records.

It could subpoena their communications.

It could seek secret orders.

It could assess whether disclosure created risks to evidence or witnesses.

It could question whether their memories were accurate.

It could pursue them on the basis of what the evidence suggested they had done—not merely what they said they had done.

That power is sometimes necessary.

But the people who wield it cannot then claim that their own explanations are beyond the same scrutiny.

“I don’t recall” is an answer. It is not immunity from the next question.

And neither is:

“The judge approved it.”

Neither is:

“It was my job.”

Neither is:

“I acted independently.”

And neither is:

“I don’t know what happened above me.”

Those answers may all be truthful.

But truthfulness is not established simply because someone says the words.

The records still have to be examined.

That is what investigators do.

That is what Congress is supposed to do.

And ultimately, that is what the public deserves from anyone entrusted with the extraordinary power of the federal government:

not perfection, but accountability.