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Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice indicted President Trump, accused the Justice Department of having been “corrupted” by Trump loyalists he claimed were demolishing its credibility and seeking to undermine the rule of law.

Mr. Smith’s remarks, made last month in a private discussion at the Cosmos Club in Washington, represented his sharpest criticism of the department since leaving his post early last year. They came at a time when Mr. Trump is demanding Mr. Smith be prosecuted for his work as special counsel — an outcome Mr. Smith believes is likely, according to people familiar with his thinking.

“We have a Department of Justice today that targets people for criminal prosecution simply because the president doesn’t like them,” Mr. Smith said in the hourlong discussion on April 20, according to a video obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Smith, speaking in the deliberate cadence of a prosecutor delivering a closing argument, cited what he cast as the wholesale erosion of the department’s tradition of independence from the White House. “We have a department that fails to investigate cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient narratives the president would like to press,” he said.

“We have a department that fails to move on cases because they might uncover facts that are inconvenient to narratives the president would like to press,” added Mr. Smith, who was appointed in late 2022 to investigate Mr. Trump’s post-presidency retention of government documents and his push to overturn the 2020 election.