House committee urges DOJ to charge former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith

The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee encouraged the Justice Department to file criminal charges against Jack Smith, claiming the former special counsel who filed criminal charges against President Trump lied to Congress; Smith’s lawyers called these allegations “bogus.”

criminal referral Coming from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan on Wednesday last year’s statement said investigators had obtained the phone records of several Republican lawmakers as part of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s actions after the 2020 election. In testimony last year, Smith testified that his team did not obtain the contents of any phone calls or text messages because the records sought were “paid records” that contained only details such as the numbers a person called.

But last week, Ministry of Justice addressed to MPs Smith’s team filed a separate subpoena for records held by the National Archives and Records Administration. obtained text messages Among Trump-era White House staff and dozens of members of Congress.

In light of this information, Jordan accused Smith of making “materially false statements” and said he “improperly failed to disclose” the subpoena to the National Archives.

“All individuals have an obligation to comply with a duly authorized congressional investigation. Mr. Smith, a former public official, is no different,” Jordan wrote. “However, his testimony contained deliberately false statements designed to impede the Committee’s oversight.”

Jordan asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to investigate Smith. It is up to the Department of Justice whether to pursue criminal charges following a criminal complaint from Congress.

A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that it had received the referral letter and said it would “investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.”

Mr Trump Calls were made for Smith to be tried in the past. The president has frequently attacked officials investigating him, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who have both been charged with crimes.

In a letter to Jordan and Blanche, Smith’s lawyers said Smith’s answers to the committee’s questions were “perfectly accurate.” They noted that Smith was asked about the subpoena for GOP lawmakers’ wage records, not a request for records from the National Archives. They also said Smith’s team disclosed the technical messages to Mr. Trump’s lawyers, who did not suggest anything “illegal or improper” had occurred at the time.

“This guidance reflects a chilling desire to weaponize the justice system by attacking a non-partisan public official who performs his duties faithfully and fearlessly following the facts and the law,” the letter said. The statement was included.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called the criminal complaint “baseless and vindictive” and suggested in a statement that the case would “be made a laughing stock out of court” if heard by a judge.

“Republicans blame Mr. Smith for not reading the minds of congressional investigators and volunteering information they did not ask for,” Raskin wrote Wednesday night. “That’s ridiculous. Mr. Smith may be telegenic, but he’s not telepathic.”

Biden-era Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to the special counsel role in late 2022, shortly after Mr. Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign. He was put in charge of two Justice Department investigations: One focused on Mr. Trump’s attempts to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss, and the other focused on his handling of sensitive government documents that Mr. Trump took to his Mar-a-Lago club after leaving the White House.

Smith after all brought expenses Either way, it marked the first federal prosecution of a former president and drew the ire of Mr. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and accused Smith of acting out of political animus.

Both cases against Mr. Trump were resolved without charges in 2024. A judge threw out the classified documents indictment, finding Smith not guilty. invalidly assignedand Supreme Court Throws a spanner in the 2020 election indictment with the decision Mr. Trump is entitled to broad immunity in official proceedings. Smith dropped the election case After Mr. Trump wins the 2024 race, however discussed in the final report Otherwise, he said, Mr. Trump would be convicted.

Both Smith’s final report and the 2023 indictment for election-related crimes include phone calls between lawmakers and Mr. Trump following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The indictment alleged the calls were part of the president’s last-ditch attempt to “exploit violence” and prevent Republicans from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

The Senate Judiciary Committee announced in October that the FBI analyzed phone charge records of eight Republican senators and one GOP House member covering activities in the days surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.

The committee’s chairman is GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa. called discovery “disturbing and outrageous” at the time and claimed the FBI was “spying” on members of Congress. Grassley argued that this was the latest example of the “weaponization” of law enforcement; It was a theme Mr. Trump often expressed when describing the investigations into himself and his allies.

Smith defended his behavior at length. “It is well established that obtaining telephone charge records pursuant to a subpoena is a routine and lawful investigative step that does not violate an individual’s expectation of privacy,” his attorneys wrote in a letter last year.

Then last week, Grassley released a letter from the Justice Department listing 44 lawmakers whose White House text messages were sent to researchers on Smith’s team as part of a subpoena sent to the National Archives. Although the majority of those lawmakers are Republicans, four Democrats are also on the list, including Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.

The letters were sent almost immediately to Smith’s staff, preventing them from being reviewed by a “filter team,” or a separate team responsible for screening evidence that might be privileged before investigators review it, the letter said.

Grassley accused researchers who claimed they were “grossly violating the Constitution” by arguing that the texts could be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause limits significantly Criminal prosecutions of members of Congress. The criminal complaint filed Wednesday from Jordan also alleged that Smith “possibly circumvented basic constitutional protections.”

“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train with no brakes,” Grassley said last week. “I hope my Democratic colleagues, many of whom have had their transcripts scanned, will finally put partisanship aside and recognize the seriousness of these actions.”

In their letter Wednesday night, Smith’s lawyers wrote that the Speech or Discussion Clause “does not prevent prosecutors from using or reviewing text messages between Members of Congress and members of the Executive Branch in an investigation and prosecution of an Executive Branch official, which is exactly what happened here.”

They also said the filter team did not need to review White House records because the process exists primarily to weed out evidence covered by protections such as attorney-client privilege.

“Mr. Smith approached the investigation of President Trump the same way he approached every other investigation throughout his career as a prosecutor, following the facts and the law while adhering to Department of Justice protocols and regulations,” Smith’s attorneys said.