Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led multiple high-profile criminal investigations into Donald Trump, asked congressional leaders to allow him to testify publicly as Republican lawmakers in Congress have opened an investigation into the jurist.

Lawyers representing him say in a letter sent to the leaders of the House Judiciary Committees say Smith wants to testify “in open hearings” because of “the numerous mischaracterizations” surrounding her investigations, which led to criminal charges against Donald Trump in 2023 for alleged mishandling of classified records and for actions related to the 2020 election results.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has expressed support for Smith’s public testimony, in a press release.

“To date, [the Department of Justice] is fighting to prevent the release of the Special Counsel’s full report on this criminal activity,” Raskin wrote in a letter to committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan. “I know you agree that the American people, whose taxes funded these investigations, have a compelling interest—indeed, a right—to hear directly from Mr. Smith about both investigations into the sitting president of the United States.”

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the committees are focused first on gathering facts.

“Jack Smith certainly has a lot to answer for, but first, Congress needs to have all the facts before it,” Grassley told CNN in a statement. “Hearings should happen once the foundation for the investigation has been established, which is why I am actively working with the Department of Justice and the FBI to gather all relevant records that took Mr. Smith years to learn about.”

In his role as special counsel, Jack Smith led two investigations into Trump: one into his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction of their return after leaving office, and another into Trump’s attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Both investigations resulted in criminal charges against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, denied any wrongdoing, and has long alleged that the prosecutions were politically biased.

A federal court dismissed the classified documents case in 2024, prompting prosecutors to file a last-minute appeal.

After Trump was reelected, Smith moved to drop both the election case and the appeal of the classified documents case, given the lack of precedent for prosecuting a sitting president and a Supreme Court ruling that Trump was entitled to broad immunity for acts he took in office.

Potential public hearings in Congress would give Smith a chance to defend the integrity of the two criminal cases he brought against Trump, amid accusations that they were “politically biased.”