Declassified records undercut what special counsel in anti-Trump case told Congress

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers he had “never met” former CIA Director and vocal Trump critic John Brennan when pressed about whether Brennan provided consultation or counsel during his tenure, but records just declassified by the White House reveal members of Smith’s team met with Brennan while preparing the classified-documents case against President Donald Trump.

The revelation about Brennan’s meeting with Special Counsel Smith’s team adds another wrinkle to Republicans’ broader scrutiny of Smith’s investigations into Trump, which has included claims of political bias, overreach and other investigative missteps.

“Jack Smith was a tool of the Biden administration to put Trump in prison,” said Harvard Law professor and former Trump impeachment counsel, Alan Dershowitz, who described Smith’s work as “a partisan weapon that broke the rules, lied to the court and engaged in bad faith throughout” in an 2025 Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. Another critic, investigative reporter John Solomon, recently described the probes as among a “10-year conspiracy to stop Donald Trump using the resources of the United States government.”

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Two assistant special counsels working under Smith joined FBI agents for a November 2023 meeting with Brennan at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, according to documents that were declassified Monday by the White House. The meeting was held “to discuss expert testimony to National Defense Information in the forthcoming trial,” indicating prosecutors were exploring the possibility of using the former CIA chief’s national security expertise as they prepared their case against Trump.

Meanwhile, Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week as part of the Republican-led panel’s oversight of his investigations into Trump. During the hearing, GOP lawmakers pressed Smith over allegations of political bias, investigative overreach and misconduct in both the Arctic Frost 2020 election probe and his classified-documents case known as “Plasmic Echo.”

In particular, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Smith whether he had ever received “consultation or counsel” from Brennan, including during his tenure as special counsel.

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Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, Sept. 16, 2025 (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Have you ever received any consultation or counsel by John Brennan, former CIA director, whether during your time as special counsel or otherwise? If so, when and for what purpose?” Grassley asked.

“I’ve never met John Brennan,” Smith responded.

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Grassley’s question, however, was broader than whether Smith personally met Brennan, and the newly declassified records show prosecutors working directly under Smith met with the former CIA director as they prepared the government’s case against Trump.

“This meeting occurred during Jack Smith’s time as Special Counsel and constitutes ‘consultation or counsel’ from John Brennan to Smith and his team,” Grassley told Digital. “Smith’s response before the Senate Judiciary Committee was highly evasive and misleading, at minimum.”

During the hearing, Grassley later returned to the issue, asking Smith whether he had ever had a conversation with Brennan.

“I have no recollection of having a conversation with John Brennan,” Smith responded.

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An image shows former CIA Director John Brennan in front of a Central Intelligence Agency crest. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images; Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

In addition to the memo outlining the 2023 Brennan meeting, the declassified release also included two pages of notes bearing CIA Headquarters headers where lines of text beneath Brennan’s name are blacked out by government redactions, leaving the remainder of the ruled pages blank.

Brennan was not serving as CIA director during the period covered by Smith’s classified-documents case and the released records do not indicate he had firsthand knowledge of Trump’s alleged handling of the documents.

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Grassley, as well as other GOP lawmakers and critics, have accused the former special counsel of investigative overreach and political bias, including pointing to records showing his Arctic Frost investigation obtained financial information involving thousands of Trump donors and phone records of Republican lawmakers, among other investigative steps. Grassley has separately raised questions about the origins and conduct of Smith’s classified-documents prosecution.

Smith, meanwhile, has rejected allegations that his investigations were politically motivated, and has maintained that his decisions were driven by the evidence and defending the work of prosecutors and investigators on his team.

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Digital reached out to attorneys for Smith to obtain comment about the Brennan meeting, as well as the Justice Department, but did not receive a response.