Jack Smith Says Trump DOJ Can’t Fulfill ‘Basic’ Expectations: ‘Not Effective At Doing Their Job Anymore’

The Justice Department is no longer able to perform “the basic things you need to do to represent the American people in court,” former Special Counsel Jack Smith told Nicolle Wallace Thursday.

There are “several layers” when considering the circumstances. “One of the problems today, besides the retribution prosecutions, is that the Justice Department can’t do its job right,” Smith began. “If you go to court and the judges don’t trust you, you can’t do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court. And we have seen judges across the country say they can’t trust prosecutors anymore.”

That dynamic “has such a cascading effect” on cases, he continued.

“I can’t count how many opinions, but one opinion like that, in my career, would have been seismic,” Smith explained. “Trust that’s been built over generations has been lost in days, right? And that’s happening every day.”

Smith also insisted this change is apolitical. “Regardless of what you think politically, they’re just not effective at doing their job anymore. They’ve jettisoned expertise,” he continued. “So we have a situation where we’ve got rid of people who know how to protect our national security, and we think that that’s somehow not going to have an effect on our national security.”

An example is what happened to Brian Driscoll, who was fired by President Trump in August 2025. Driscoll refused to hand over a list of department agents who worked on cases related to the Capitol Insurrection in January 2021.

“I mean, he’s a folk hero in the FBI, if you were casting for a hero,” Smith said. “That’s what they look like, right? And just for your viewers, this is a guy—a career agent, mob investigator, SWAT team, hostage rescue, served overseas, Medal of Valor, bravery medals, all these things, and an expert in counterintelligence. They got rid of him because he stood up for agents who were being targeted improperly. You can’t tell me. You cannot tell me our country is as safe as it was when people like that are being let go and fired for no reason.”

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