Former special counsel Jack Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday after Republicans summoned him to answer for his investigations into President Donald Trump.

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) urged the Justice Department to indict Smith, alleging that he perjured himself before the House Judiciary Committee in comments about toll records versus a wiretap. Smith testified before that panel in January, and nine months later, Attorney General Todd Blanche has not brought an indictment. That gap has kept the allegation in the political arena rather than the criminal courts, where a perjury claim would otherwise have to be tested.

Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou told MS NOW that Republicans are drilling into specifics and minutiae largely because "they want to talk about Jack Smith's investigation without talking about what the investigation was about."

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) became a subject of ridicule online during the hearing after a contentious round of questioning in which he angrily demanded answers about a slew of strange things. New Mexico civil rights lawyer Owen Barcala seized on Schmitt's question about Smith's record of putting war criminals behind bars.

"Very funny to try to attack Smith by making him out to be, like, a superhero that travels the world convicting corrupt presidents," he wrote on Bluesky.

Election and law policy expert Andy Craig laid out a broader critique in a thread on the hearing, writing, "Aside from toeing the party line, these senators really hate Jack Smith because they're viscerally opposed to the idea of prosecuting politicians. They are committed to their own elite impunity above and beyond whatever they think of Trump. Thus their obsession with the phone records is a non-issue."

"Smith never tried to prosecute a member of Congress, even though some probably should have been ... But that his investigation even glancingly touched their bubble infuriates them. Not even J6-ers themselves care about that, but they do. Thus their how dare you huffing and puffing," he added.

"They'll do performative outrage for Trump. They're actually outraged at the idea that they aren't so special as to be above the law. They have a genuine class solidarity with Trump insofar as the class they care about is people in high elected office not being subject to the criminal justice system," Craig said.

Former FBI lawyer Andrew Weissmann said one of the key things he was watching in the hearing was that Republicans were not addressing the specific facts of the case.

"The problem is that none of the questions deal with the actual facts about the two indictments that were brought by grand juries in Florida and Washington D.C.," said Weissmann. "In other words, there's been no questions to say this is a defense. This is why Donald Trump is innocent of one or both of those charges. In order to claim a political witch hunt you would think you'd need to say, 'Look, there was no there-there. But you were still going after him.' So, that's sort of this big picture that's worth noting when you hear all of this discussion: how many people are actually talking about the facts? What actually was charged against Donald Trump in D.C. and Florida." Indictments are the charging documents a grand jury returns when it finds probable cause, and they frame the facts a prosecution must ultimately prove or a defense rebut.

He went on to call the proceedings nothing more than a "game" and pointed to "subpoenas that were issued by the grand jury at the request of special counsel Jack Smith." Because grand jury investigations are conducted in secret, it is not unusual for the subpoenas they generate to remain secret as well. With those subpoenas sealed and Jordan's request still unanswered, much of the record at the heart of Tuesday's clash remains out of public view.