DOJ Faces Lawsuit Seeking To Expose Jack Smith’s Secret Meetings With Judges Who Aided Investigations of Trump

The conservative legal group, Judicial Watch, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking information about meetings between Special Counsel Jack Smith and two prominent judges. The move follows the department’s failure to reply to a Freedom of Information request filed by the group in March.The information concerning meetings between Mr. Smith and Judges Beryl Howell and James Boasberg, both federal judges at the District of Columbia, could bring out of the shadows parleys between the prosecutor and the jurists he relied on to prosecute President Trump. The filing of the suit on Friday signals a strange situation emerging whereby Judicial Watch is attempting to expose the inner machinations of Mr. Smith’s work against Mr. Trump even as his administration is blocking — for now — information that would seemingly bolster the 47th president’s case that he was the subject of an unlawful prosecution. Hostility toward Mr. Smith’s work has emerged as official policy, embedded in such organs of the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group,” first convened by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Mr. Trump has called for Mr. Smith to be convicted and imprisoned. Judicial Watch’s complaint is docketed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It requests “all meeting notes, recordings, transcripts, calendar entries, handouts, audio-video presentations, agendas, and any other records associated with meetings” between Mr. Smith and Judges Howell and Boasberg. The Justice Department has told Judicial Watch that “unusual circumstances” have prevented its ability to respond positively to the request.The interactions between Mr. Smith and the two jurists at issue occurred between December 2022 and April 2023, the first months of his tenure as special counsel. Mr. Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022 — just days after Mr. Trump declared his intention to retake the White House. Mr. Smith immediately launched criminal probes into Mr. Trump for election interference and the storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Neither Judge Boasberg nor Judge Howell presided over either of those cases, which were handled by Judge Tanya Chutkan and Aileen Cannon, respectively. The two jurists based at the District of Columbia, though — where Judge Boasberg serves as senior judge — were involved in supervising the prosecutor’s “Operation Arctic Frost.” That was the sprawling probe into January 6 that involved the surveillance of telephone data belonging to 14 Republican lawmakers. While only Mr. Trump was criminally charged as a result of the investigation, Mr. Smith’s access to the communications of the lawmakers — which included at least eight senators — prompted outrage in the Republican ranks and concerns that the Constitution’s Speech or Debate immunity, an absolute protection offered to solons, had been trampled.The disclosure of Operation Arctic Frost led to public hearings spearheaded by Senator Charles Grassley called “Arctic Frost: A Modern Watergate.” As part of those proceedings the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman released internal DOJ briefing notes — informal summaries of the prosecutors’s progress — in which Mr. Smith’s office wrote to colleagues that Judge Howell “liked our approach of pursuing the executive privilege litigation in an omnibus fashion.” Another note simply reads “Judge Boasberg = March 18.” Another note in that same briefing document references a pending motion and observes, “Chief Judge knows it is coming and loves idea.” That is a reference to Judge Boasberg. He eventually gave his judicial imprimatur to not only Mr. Smith’s subpoenas to cellular carriers for the telephone data he sought, but also to attached nondisclosure orders that prevented those companies from informing the lawmakers about the surveillance.Judges Boasberg and Howell have locked horns with the Trump administration before. Judge Boasberg challenged the 47th president’s use of the 1797 Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal migrants to El Salvador that the government claimed were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, a designated terrorist organization. Judge Boasberg initiated contempt proceedings against the DOJ, alleging that the government’s lawyers defied his orders in the case.The Supreme Court blocked Judge Boasberg from pursuing contempt charges, but Chief Justice Roberts came to the judge’s defense when Mr. Trump unleashed a torrent of criticism at the judge and urged his impeachment. The chief justice declared in a rare statement that “for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”Judge Howell, an appointee of President Obama who has now taken senior status but once served in the chief judge position now held by Judge Boasberg, presided over many of the criminal cases related to January 6. When Mr. Trump pardon and commuted the sentences of all of those defendants — some 1,600 of them — Judge Howell declared that “No ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity.”Judicial Watch, which describes itself as “a national leader in exposing the lawfare and abuse targeting Trump and other American citizens,” might find that the Justice Department is less than militant in its opposition to this lawsuit conveys. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, has denounced Mr. Smith and would not appear inclined to protect him from scrutiny. The department has not yet answered The New York Sun’s queries about the lawsuit or its failure to respond to the Freedom of Information Act request.

DOJ Faces Lawsuit Seeking To Expose Jack Smith’s Secret Meetings With Judges Who Aided Investigations of Trump

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