House Republicans file criminal referral against ex-special counsel Jack Smith

House Republicans are attempting to file criminal charges against former special counsel Jack Smith, but legal experts and Democratic lawmakers have swiftly dismissed the effort as unfounded.

Representative Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on Wednesday, urging the department to investigate Smith for allegedly making false statements to Congress during his December testimony.

The Disputed Testimony

The dispute centers on a line of questioning in which Smith was asked whether he had sought a search warrant for the content of text messages from members of Congress. Smith replied that he had not.

Last week, Senator Chuck Grassley posted on X that he had "received records [from] DOJ confirming Jack Smith's investigative team reviewed the contents of text msgs sent by 44 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS."

Key Distinctions

Legal experts, including Lawfare's Anna Bower and Politico's Kyle Cheney, pointed out that Grassley's post and the questions Smith was asked concerned two different categories of documents.

• Smith requested information from Congress on toll records, which involved the time and date of text messages, not their content.
• In a separate instance, Smith's team gathered text messages from the National Archives from White House phones. Some of those records included exchanges with members of Congress. However, Republicans never asked about that.

"[T]here's zero ambiguity here," Bower said. "Nothing in the Grassley docs raises any real question of perjury."

Democratic Response

House Democrats quickly responded to Jordan's letter on Wednesday. Representative Jamie Raskin called the referral a "baseless and vindictive criminal referral" that "deliberately distorts and misstates the facts, including what questions the Republicans actually asked at Mr. Smith's interview."

Smith's Legal Team Responds

Smith's lawyers have also responded to Jordan's letter with one of their own, saying his accusations are based on a "spurious claim."

"The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement, which the letter concedes, but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked," Smith's lawyers wrote. "During his testimony, Mr. Smith provided truthful, responsive answers and candidly discussed his work."

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Trump Threatens Iran Over Houthi Attacks on Saudi Ships

The U.S. president issued another threat against Iran on Thursday, pledging to hold the country "responsible" for attacks carried out by Houthis the night before against Saudi Arabian ships.

"A year ago the United States of America attacked, very powerfully, the Houthis, for their interference with commerce and trade, by shooting at ships. Since that time, and during our conflict with Iran, they have acted very responsibly," Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.

He referred to an airstrike campaign the U.S. conducted against the Houthis from March to May 2025, after the group attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

"Unfortunately, now they are starting up again, shooting at two Saudi Arabian ships last night," he continued. "Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves, who I am very disappointed with in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart."

Houthi Claims Responsibility

Yemen's Houthi militia claimed responsibility for overnight drone and missile strikes against Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. In a statement, the Iranian-backed group claimed that the two vessels, the Encelia and Layla, had violated its naval blockade. The Houthis also claimed that the attacks on the two ships had forced approximately 10 other vessels to retreat.