Former special counsel Jack Smith's refusal to answer questions about FBI Director Kash Patel during his first television interview since resigning is raising red flags, journalist Kaitlyn Pierce, who writes under the name “Kait Justice,” argued in an analysis published Saturday.
Smith sat down with MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace on July 2 for his first on-camera interview since stepping down from the investigations into President Donald Trump. When Wallace pressed him on the classified documents case – the probe into national security records Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office – Smith repeatedly declined to answer, citing the sealed status of Volume II of his final report.
Writing on her Substack, Justice argued that Smith's silence was notable given Patel's own history in that same investigation. Patel was subpoenaed before the grand jury investigating Trump's handling of classified materials and invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent rather than answer questions. Prosecutors granted him immunity, and a judge issued a sealed order compelling his testimony – an order that remains under seal.
Justice noted that Patel had spent months publicly insisting he witnessed Trump declassify the documents before leaving office, a claim that became part of Trump's defense, before the same man was later put in charge of the FBI.
“I don’t think people are truly looking at how extraordinary that is,” Justice wrote.
“What [Patel] said behind those closed doors is locked inside the report Judge Aileen Cannon sealed under a permanent order, and two watchdog groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, are still in court fighting to get released.”
The questions Patel’s secret testimony raised, Justice argued, were endless.
“So what did Kash Patel tell prosecutors once immunity forced him to talk?” Justice wrote. “What did Smith’s team conclude about his testimony? Why did the man who now runs the FBI need immunity before he would answer questions in the investigation into the president who gave him the job?”