Jack Smith spent years building two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump. Back before senators on Tuesday, the former special counsel showed little interest in reconsidering the decisions that put him on a collision course with the president.

Smith defended his investigations before the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisting politics did not determine his decision to prosecute Trump over efforts to overturn the 2020 election or his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

More strikingly, Smith said his team believed the evidence met the highest standard required for a criminal conviction.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” Smith told senators according to RadarOnline.

Trump was never convicted in either federal case, and Smith’s statement represents the former prosecutor’s assessment of the evidence rather than a judicial finding of guilt. Both federal prosecutions ultimately ended without a trial.

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Tuesday’s hearing gave Republican senators an opportunity to confront the prosecutor who pursued the party’s most powerful figure.

Smith did not retreat.

“I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including my decision to bring charges against President Trump,” he said.

“I made those decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.”

Smith went further, saying Trump’s political affiliation would not have changed his decision.

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“If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.”

Republicans have long argued that Smith’s investigations amounted to politically motivated law enforcement. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley used Tuesday’s hearing to accuse Smith’s operation of targeting Republicans and abusing its authority, allegations Smith disputed.

Smith puts the evidence front and center

Smith also rejected the idea that prosecutors went looking for a reason to charge Trump.

According to the former special counsel, evidence drove the decisions, which were ultimately presented to grand juries.

“Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Smith said.

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“After leaving office in January of 2021, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”

Those assertions describe the prosecution’s case against Trump, not findings reached after a criminal trial.

Smith obtained federal indictments in both investigations. The classified-documents case was dismissed by US District Judge Aileen Cannon in 2024 after she ruled that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, while the election case was abandoned after Trump’s 2024 victory because Justice Department policy bars prosecuting a sitting president.

Then somebody mentioned basketball

Serious constitutional and prosecutorial questions occupied much of the hearing.

Basketball somehow managed to steal part of the show.

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Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt questioned Smith about whether he had attended an NBA game between the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors in Atlanta on February 3, 2024.

Smith said he had not.

Schmitt suggested he had evidence to the contrary and connected his questioning to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was separately prosecuting Trump in Georgia at the time.

“Let me just give you a little context,” Schmitt said.

“The day before Fani Willis came clean with her affair with the prosecutor – you know, the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump – the next day, were you in Atlanta?”

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“I do not believe so,” Smith replied.

Schmitt then said he possessed text messages from members of Smith’s team that supposedly placed him at the basketball game.

“I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t, you know, perjure yourself,” Schmitt said.

“I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”

Schmitt continued the attack.

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“You may think you’re a hero in this story. But let me tell you something: You’re the villain.”

“You’ve done so much damage as a former prosecutor … You will go down as a total dirtbag.”

The accusation soon ran into a rather significant problem.

Hawks and Hawkeyes prove to be rather different things

Smith did remember attending a basketball game around that date.

Just not in Atlanta.

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Smith said he attended a women’s college basketball game between the University of Maryland and the University of Iowa in College Park, Maryland, where Iowa star Caitlin Clark was playing.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar then noticed something potentially important in the messages Schmitt had presented.

Iowa’s team is called the Hawkeyes.

Atlanta’s NBA team is called the Hawks.

“Could it then be that the University of Iowa was the Hawkeyes?” Klobuchar asked.

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“Perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully.”

Reporting from the Associated Press and The Washington Post subsequently confirmed that Smith attended the Iowa-Maryland game in Maryland, not the Hawks-Warriors game in Atlanta.

Klobuchar was less than impressed with Schmitt’s accusation.

“For a U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, which I knew, knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia, and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology,” she said.

The cases are gone but the fight certainly is not

Tuesday’s hearing offered no shortage of reminders that Smith’s prosecutions remain politically explosive long after the criminal cases themselves disappeared.

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Republicans questioned his investigative methods, including subpoenas that swept up records involving lawmakers, donors and journalists. Smith defended his team’s work and rejected allegations that he had used federal law enforcement as a partisan weapon.

His central message about Trump was considerably simpler.

Smith believes prosecutors had enough evidence to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt, and he says he would authorize the prosecutions again under the same circumstances.

No jury ever had the opportunity to decide whether he was right.

Tuesday’s Senate hearing could not answer that question either, though it did manage to settle a considerably easier one.