Jack Smith Wears ‘No Kings’ Shirt at Protest Festival - Newsweek
Former special counsel Jack Smith was spotted at a music festival on October 3 wearing a "No Kings" T-shirt.
Smith, the attorney who led two criminal cases against then-former President Donald Trump in 2023, found himself at the center of an unexpectedly viral moment last week when Senator Eric Schmitt’s "slam dunk" evidence against him during a Senate Judiciary Committee quickly crumbled.
This weekend, Smith attended the inaugural Power to the People festival in Maryland, where his outfit quickly gained attention. Smith was wearing a T-shirt from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour earlier this year.
The black top featured the text "Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour," "Springsteen & E Street," and, at the bottom, the words "No Kings."
The term "No Kings" comes from a group of nonpartisan protests held across the U.S. opposing Donald Trump’s second administration.
Three nationwide No Kings protests have taken place so far, in June and October 2025 and in March 2026. The group also hosted a concert to rival Trump’s concert at the UFC Freedom 250 fight on June 14, 2026.
"The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings—and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty," the No Kings website reads.
Smith wearing a T-shirt featuring the "No Kings" slogan is particularly notable given his role in the investigations into Trump. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday morning, Trump reacted to Smith being pictured in the T-shirt and wrote: "Deranged Jack Smith is a Crooked Prosecutor!"
Beyond the "No Kings" T-shirt, former special counsel Smith got an onstage shout out from the Foo Fighters.
Lead singer Dave Grohl dedicated the band’s 1997 hit "My Hero" to "my new friend Jack" as Smith watched on from the crowd.
Grohl also gave a nod to Smith's recent brush with Senator Eric Schmitt in D.C. by taking the stage in a shirt with the University of Iowa Hawkeyes logo.
The team's name was at the center of an embarrassing mix-up for Schmitt during his questioning of Smith last week in the Senate.
Believing he had found the smoking gun to support his theory that Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had colluded on their investigations into Trump's election interference, Schmitt gloated about evidence that Smith was at an Atlanta Hawks game in February 2024.
However, the senator had confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Hawkeyes, and, in reality, Smith was not at the Hawks game, but watching the Iowa Hawkeyes team play nearly 600 miles away in Maryland.
Saturday’s Power to the People festival, hosted in Columbia, Maryland, was organized by Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave musician Tom Morello.
Described as a day of "peace, love, justice, and music," the lineup included Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Public Enemy and other artists.
On the website, the festival pledged that a portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales, and 100 percent of net proceeds from VIP tickets, would be donated to VoteRiders, a charity organization that helps citizens secure voter ID and promotes every U.S. citizen’s right to vote.
On stage, artists used the platform to speak out on issues close to them.
During their performance, Public Enemy front man Chuck D took aim at Ed Sheeran in the wake of rapper Macklemore being removed from his U.S. tour over pro-Palestinian remarks.
"This concert is not by Ed Sheeran’s promoters. Free Palestine, free Haiti, and please free a closed mind," Chuck D said, before adding: "F*** Donald Trump."
In another onstage speech, event organizer Morello told the audience: "This land does not belong to the billionaires and the oligarchs. It does not belong to the racists and the warmongers. It does not belong to the fascists and the would-be dictators. Brothers and sisters, this land belongs to you and me. Power to the people!"
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
