Please consider this: If corrupt Biden Administration officials would abuse members of the U.S. Congress in this manner, what would they do to the average American citizen?
This past week, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Chuck Grassley, (R-Iowa) announced that former Special Counsel, Jack Smith, and his investigative team secretly obtained text messages from 44 Members of Congress (including Louisiana’s U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise) as part of the Biden Department of Justice’s “criminal investigation” into President Trump.
Just as Captain Ahab’s maniacal fixation on, and chase of, Moby Dick has come to represent the insanity of obsession, in which all things are justified to achieve the destruction of one’s enemy, Jack Smith then lied about it under oath.
This raises constitutional concerns given that communications of Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties receive absolute immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suits under the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.
This bombshell discovery is reflected in new records released by Grassley and U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) (both of whose text messages were obtained by Smith’s team) as part of their ongoing Arctic Frost oversight investigation.
The recent Department of Justice letter to Grassley and Johnson makes clear that Smith’s investigative team ignored every process to protect privileged materials from being swept up in a criminal prosecution—and directly accessed the content of texts sent by Members of Congress to White House officials during President Trump’s first term.
Senator Grassley asserts:
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes. It’s obvious that Biden DOJ and FBI investigators ignored their own investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government’s investigation. I hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions. Smith’s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings. Jack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable.”
Senator Johnson added: “This is yet another grotesque example of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department. Jack Smith’s team acted with impunity as they disregarded their own protocols to obtain and access White House text messages, including messages to and from 44 Members of Congress.”
The records provide evidence that the Biden Justice Department “established a Filter Team to evaluate materials obtained in the course of Smith’s investigation into both January 6 and his Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. The Filter Team’s purpose was to prevent investigators from the Special Counsel’s Office and FBI from accessing privileged materials among the records obtained during the course of these investigations.” However, “the Special Counsel’s Investigative Team ignored the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages.”
Specifically, in June 2023, Smith’s Special Counsel’s Office (SCO) subpoenaed the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to provide all text messages from October 2020 through January 20, 2021, from phones associated with a long list of personnel serving in the White House during President Trump’s first term, including Trump himself as well as: Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, John Ratcliffe, Kash Patel, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway and Mike Pence.
NARA provided the texts on August 21, 2023. Shortly thereafter, the texts were downloaded and Smith’s investigative team began reviewing the texts. Again, the review was done without evaluating and segregating privileged information.
House Republicans are actively considering a criminal referral over these allegations. Smith has subjected himself to perjury because he previously testified under oath that his office only sought telephone “toll records” identifying phone numbers, dates, and durations, and that investigators never obtained or looked at the contents of text messages.
The point of this lawfare was always to “get Trump,” and, as Captain Ahab’s neurotic fixation was always to destroy Moby Dick at all costs, the point of Jack Smith’s weaponization of lawfare was always to destroy Trump at all costs.
However, every one of the highly strained, legally unprecedented attacks on Trump’s candidacy were an attack on the American people and our democratic form of government—and the sacred and inviolable right we citizens have to choose our leaders. May there finally be some accountability. Otherwise, the lack of trust many Americans have in their government will remain.
Shreveport attorney, Royal Alexander, worked in D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 8 years for two different Members of Congress from Louisiana.