BOMBSHELL: Jack Smith Lied About Biden DOJ Illegally…

A bombshell revelation out of the Senate Judiciary Committee has reignited scrutiny of former Special Counsel Jack Smith, with Chairman Chuck Grassley announcing that records provided to his committee show Smith’s investigative team secretly obtained and reviewed text messages belonging to 44 current and former members of Congress during the Biden Justice Department’s investigation into President Trump.

The disclosure, part of Grassley and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson’s ongoing Arctic Frost oversight effort, alleges that Smith’s team bypassed a required Filter Team review process, a standard safeguard meant to prevent investigators from improperly capturing and reviewing communications that fall outside the legitimate scope of an investigation. If accurate, that is not a minor procedural slip. It is a potential violation of constitutional protections owed to sitting members of Congress.

“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley said in a statement announcing the findings. “Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine 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.”

Grassley did not stop there. “Smith’s operation cut corners and blew through constitutional stop signs instead of respecting them,” he told the committee, adding that despite being advised about the constitutional troubles involved, Smith’s team pressed forward anyway. That is a serious allegation coming from the chairman of the very committee responsible for overseeing the Justice Department.

The list of 44 lawmakers whose records were reportedly obtained spans both parties, a detail Grassley has repeatedly emphasized in hopes of building bipartisan outrage over what he describes as a clear abuse of prosecutorial power. “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,” Grassley said.

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the lawmakers whose communications were reportedly caught up in the sweep, did not hold back. He accused Smith of lying to Congress under oath about the Biden DOJ’s handling of senators’ text messages, including his own. “Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they ILLEGALLY obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” Hawley wrote, adding that his location and metadata were tracked as well, which he called a flagrant violation of the Constitution.

Hawley’s language left no room for ambiguity about what he believes should happen next. “Jack Smith ought to be prosecuted. Everyone involved needs to be PROSECUTED,” the senator said. It is a striking demand, but not one made lightly given the stakes involved if the allegations hold up under further scrutiny.

Senator Ron Johnson echoed the outrage, describing the episode as yet another example of what he called the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department. “Jack Smith’s team ignored investigative protocols and accessed White House texts including messages to and from 44 Members of Congress,” Johnson said. “Yet another blatant example of Biden’s DOJ weaponization. No one should be shocked, just outraged.”

The controversy escalated further this week when video resurfaced of Smith testifying in December 2025, in which he was directly asked whether the toll records his team requested from members of Congress included the content of text messages. Smith responded flatly, “No.” Senator Rand Paul, who circulated the clip, called it a blatant abuse of power, pointing to the apparent contradiction between Smith’s sworn testimony and the records now being presented by Grassley’s committee.

Smith, for his part, has pushed back on the characterization that he lied under oath. He has testified both publicly and privately that he followed the law throughout the course of his investigations, and his defenders argue he is now attempting to distinguish between requesting toll records, which typically show metadata like call times and numbers, and actually reading the substantive content of text messages himself.

Legal experts remain divided on how serious a violation this actually represents. Former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick said the situation looks like “tremendous overreach” and suggested DOJ likely failed to follow correct internal procedures, specifically noting the requirement for a dedicated filter team to prevent investigators from inappropriately capturing communications that fall outside the legitimate scope of a warrant.

Fishwick also raised pointed questions about what representations, if any, were made to a judge in order to authorize this collection in the first place.

Not everyone is convinced this rises to the level Republicans are describing. Some legal reporters have pushed back hard on the framing that Smith lied under oath, characterizing the GOP’s characterization as a political gambit designed to relitigate the broader Trump investigations rather than a genuine legal finding.

That skepticism deserves to be part of the record even as the underlying facts continue to be examined.

Regardless of where that legal debate ultimately lands, the practical reality is this. Records now in the possession of the Senate Judiciary Committee indicate that Biden-era Justice Department investigators obtained and reviewed private communications belonging to sitting members of Congress, including members of the opposing party who were investigating the same administration that authorized the surveillance.

That alone should trouble anyone who cares about the separation of powers and the constitutional independence of the legislative branch.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan confirmed this week that his committee is actively weighing a criminal referral against Jack Smith over the allegations that he misled lawmakers during testimony about his investigation into President Trump. “We’re already looking at that,” Jordan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Do we need to refer him to the Justice Department, to Attorney General Blanche, for them to go ahead and move forward with prosecution? We’re looking at that as we speak.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was pressed directly on the matter during his confirmation hearing this past week, when Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana raised the newly revealed allegations about Smith’s review of lawmakers’ text messages. Blanche confirmed to the committee that the Justice Department is actively investigating the matter, a significant development that suggests this controversy is not going to fade quietly.

Grassley has stated plainly that he intends to bring Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to answer directly for these findings. Given the scope of the allegations and the bipartisan list of lawmakers affected, that hearing is likely to draw enormous attention from both sides of the aisle, regardless of how each party ultimately chooses to characterize what happened.

This latest revelation adds to a growing list of concerns conservatives have raised for years about how the Biden Justice Department handled its investigations into President Trump and his allies.

From the initial FBI search of Mar-a-Lago to the January 6-related investigation Smith led, Republicans have consistently argued that career officials at the DOJ operated with a political thumb on the scale, and this new disclosure about swept-up congressional communications only reinforces that narrative for many on the right.

It bears repeating that due process cuts both ways here. Smith has not been charged with any crime related to these specific allegations, and any prosecution referral would still need to work through the Justice Department and potentially the courts before consequences follow.

The system should be allowed to work, even when, especially when, the person under scrutiny once held one of the most powerful prosecutorial positions in the country.