SerpApi.Org
Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday told the Justice Department it should prosecute former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining lawmakers’ text messages in the course of his investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow his 2020 election loss.
In a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed Smith lied during a December deposition with the committee when he said he had not sought a search warrant for lawmakers’ texts. Instead, Smith said he sought only “toll” records that showed the times of phone calls between certain lawmakers and White House officials.
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Jordan claims Smith lied in his answer because documents Republicans obtained this month show Smith actually did get his hands on text messages from lawmakers when his office asked the National Archives and Records Administration for presidential records that included texts between lawmakers and administration officials.
“Under relevant federal statutes, a witness makes a false statement when the witness provides a half-truth or excludes information necessary to make statements accurate,” Jordan said in his letter to Blanche.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the judiciary committee’s top Democrat, called the criminal referral an embarrassment.
“It seems Republican Members of Congress are lashing out because they just realized their communications with the White House became presidential records preserved at the National Archives as required by the Presidential Records Act,” Raskin said in a statement.
If the Justice Department prosecuted Smith, Raskin said, the case would be laughed out of court. “But success on the merits is not the goal,” Raskin said. “It is meant to harass Jack Smith. It is meant to please their Fox News viewership. It is meant to whitewash their own participation in a scheme to overthrow our elections.”
