Jack Smith is wrangling with congressional leaders over access to his investigative files regarding Trump, and has offered to testify publicly once he has them. Rep. Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urged his committee leaders to accept Smith’s offer. Via CNN:

“I can think of no reason to deny the American people the opportunity to hear his testimony, under oath and with questioning from Members of both parties, and to let all Americans judge for themselves the integrity of Mr. Smith’s investigations. There is no reason his appearance should be in the shadows of a backroom and subject to the usual tiresome partisan tactics of leak-and-distort,” Raskin said in his own letter Thursday.

Potential public hearings would give Smith his biggest opportunity yet to defend the integrity of the two criminal cases he brought against Trump.

After Trump’s reelection last year brought a swift end to Smith’s prosecutions, the former special counsel has made few public comments about the matter, though he’s been steadfast in his defense of how the historic criminal cases were handled.

During a recent talk in London, he said the cases were untainted by politics and called claims that they were politically motivated “absolutely ludicrous.”