On July 22, 2026, a powerful Republican congressman asked the Justice Department to investigate a former prosecutor named Jack Smith for allegedly lying to Congress. The congressman is Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. His request is called a "criminal referral" — a formal letter asking the Justice Department to look into whether someone broke the law. It is not a charge, and it has no legal power on its own House Judiciary Committee.

Jack Smith was the special prosecutor who led the federal investigation into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That investigation is now over, but members of Congress are scrutinizing how Smith's team did its work.

Here is the core of the dispute. When Smith spoke to the committee in a private session in December 2025, and again in a public session in January 2026, he was asked about what kind of phone data his team collected on members of Congress. Smith said his team obtained only "toll records" — basic information like which phone numbers were dialed and when. Think of it like looking at a phone bill: you can see who called whom, but not what anyone said.

But on July 14, 2026, the Justice Department reportedly showed the committee documents indicating that Smith's team had access to the actual content of text messages belonging to 44 members of Congress The Guardian. That is a higher level of access than a phone bill. Getting the content of messages usually requires a stronger legal justification than getting basic call logs.

Jordan's letter says Smith "made willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact" to Congress. The committee published a redacted — meaning partially blacked-out — transcript of Smith's private testimony on its website in December 2025 House Judiciary Committee. That transcript is now the key piece of evidence behind the accusation.

Smith's lawyers — Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski — sent their own letter to the Justice Department. They said Smith "provided truthful, responsive answers" and called the referral "a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system." Their letter also noted that Smith knew, when he testified, that Trump's Justice Department might try to use his words against him The Guardian.

The top Democrat on the committee, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, called the referral "a laughably weak and vindictive criminal referral." He said Smith's testimony about obtaining call records "was true when he said it, and it is true today" House Judiciary Committee Democrats.

This is not the first time Jordan's committee has gone after a prosecutor from the Trump cases. In November 2025, Jordan sent a separate criminal referral to Attorney General Pamela Bondi about Thomas Windom, a former senior prosecutor who worked under Smith. That referral alleged "significant evidence of wrongdoing" and followed an interview Windom did with congressional investigators in June 2025 Politico.

Now the decision rests with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. He must decide whether to actually open an investigation into Smith. The Justice Department has not said how long that might take.

The broader picture here is a fight over the justice system itself. A Republican committee chair is using a false-statements law against a prosecutor who investigated the now-president. Democrats are calling it revenge. And Smith's lawyers are already arguing that any prosecution would be political. The November referral against Windom, now eight months old with no public resolution, may hint at how the Justice Department will handle this one.