Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led the now-aborted federal prosecution of Donald Trump, has dropped a final, explosive assertion into the historical record: he had the evidence to secure a conviction.

In a transcript released Wednesday from a closed-door deposition with the House Judiciary Committee, Smith dismantled the narrative that his case was politically motivated. Instead, he offered a stark warning about the future of democratic accountability—one that carries profound weight for Kenyan observers familiar with the fragile dance between justice and power.

“I believed we had proof beyond a reasonable doubt in both cases,” Smith testified, referring to the charges of mishandling classified documents and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Despite the cases being dropped following Trump’s 2024 election victory, Smith’s testimony serves as a defiant post-mortem of a justice system blinking in the face of executive power.

The “New Norm” of Impunity

The most haunting exchange occurred when Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal pressed Smith on the long-term impact of failing to prosecute election interference. Smith’s response outlined a scenario all too familiar to voters in the Global South.

“Theoretically, what happens if there is election interference and the people who are responsible for that are not held accountable?” Jayapal asked.

“It becomes the new norm, and that becomes how we… conduct elections,” Smith replied. When asked to describe the toll on democracy, his answer was a single, heavy word: “Catastrophic.”

For Kenyans, who have watched electoral disputes evolve from the 2007 post-election violence to the 2017 Supreme Court nullification, Smith’s warning is not abstract. It echoes the local reality: when institutions fail to penalize electoral malpractice, the malpractice becomes the strategy.

Weaponization Claims and “Retribution”

Trump and his Republican allies have long painted Smith as the tip of a spear wielded by the Biden administration to “weaponize” the Justice Department. Smith categorically rejected this, testifying under oath that he never spoke to President Joe Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland about the specifics of his cases.

“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat,” Smith asserted. He added that he would have indicted Biden or Barack Obama given similar evidence.

However, the cost of this independence has been personal. In a chilling admission regarding the incoming administration, Smith acknowledged the danger he now faces. “I have no doubt that the president wants to seek retribution against me,” he said. This fear of state-backed retaliation mirrors the precarious position often held by independent investigators and whistleblowers in Kenya’s own anti-corruption landscape.

The Phone Records Controversy

Smith also used the testimony to defend his team’s investigative methods, specifically the subpoenaing of phone records from members of Congress. Republicans have seized on this as evidence of overreach.

Smith hit back, clarifying that investigators obtained only metadata—logs of incoming and outgoing calls and their duration—not the content of the conversations. “Recent narratives about my team’s work are false and misleading,” he stated, emphasizing that the records were lawfully obtained to map the “criminal scheme” to delay the 2020 election certification.

As the dust settles on this chapter of American history, Smith’s testimony stands as a final testament to a prosecution that was legally ready but politically outmaneuvered. His parting words serve as a caution to democracies everywhere: the law is only as strong as the will to enforce it.