Grassley Accuses Jack Smith of Tracking Sales of Red MAGA Hats To ‘Map Out the Entire Republican Party Apparatus’

The disclosure by Senator Charles Grassley that Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained confidential information on more than 600,000 Republican donors underscores the sheer scope of the prosecution of President Trump for the aftermath of January 6, 2021. The information comes as part of Mr. Grassley’s investigation into “Operation Arctic Frost,” the code name for Mr. Smith’s probe that ultimately led to the handing up of criminal charges against Mr. Trump for election interference and conspiracy. “Arctic Frost” swept up the telephone metadata of 14 lawmakers, the text messages of 44, and the locations of First Lady Melania Trump, Barron Trump, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.Now Mr. Grassley, 93, writes in a memorandum that Mr. Smith’s office and the Department of Justice “obtained spreadsheets containing Republican campaign donors, supporters, and detailed personal voter information in various formats, totaling over 639,000 individuals, at minimum. Out of those, over 148,000 rows are identified in the spreadsheets as donors. The donors generally contributed small-dollar amounts.”Mr. Smith allegedly collected names, dates of birth, addresses, emails, party registration, occupation and place of employment, credit card information, and donation amount. Mr. Grassley explains that his “update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly invasive donor data — and voter data — beyond what could conceivably be necessary for him or his team to fulfill the special counsel office’s mandate.”Mr. Grassley’s memo discloses that Mr. Smith “obtained information on “sales of red MAGA hats, including individual buyers, their purchases, and their shipping addresses for home delivery. This is in addition to collecting a catalogue of Trump campaign products including these red hats, t-shirts, mugs, and door mats.” That mandate, per Attorney General Merrick Garland, included weighing whether to charge Mr. Trump in connection to both January 6 and the storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Smith elected to press charges in both cases. Mr. Trump pleaded “not guilty” on all counts, and neither reached trial. They were both dismissed when Mr. Trump defeated Vice President Harris in 2024 to regain the White House.Mr. Grassley, who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has emerged as the tip of the spear against Mr. Smith in the upper chamber, accuses the prosecutor of aiming “to map out the entire Republican Party apparatus. I again call on my Democratic colleagues to join my oversight work instead of trying to defend Smith and sweep his abuse of authority under the rug.”Mr. Smith was asked, during his testimony before Congress last month, whether he had collected donor information. He responded under oath “Yes. We acquired financial information. As I sit here right now, I cannot recite to you every subpoena we issued. I can tell you why we issued subpoenas. And it was to conduct a criminal investigation of one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history. I had a duty to collect facts.”Mr. Smith has been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution by Congressman Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Jordan’s referral alleges that Mr. Smith lied under oath during a deposition in December, when he denied ever having accessed the text messages of lawmakers. Mr. Smith is also being sued by Senator Marsha Blackburn, who alleges that his investigation trampled on her constitutional rights. The most memorable colloquy during that hearing, though, came when Senator Eric Schmitt accused Mr. Smith of clandestinely traveling to Atlanta to confer with another of Mr. Trump’s legal antagonists, Fulton County Attorney Fani Willis. That allegation, though, rested on confusing the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks with college basketball’s Iowa Hawkeyes. Mr. Smith was at Maryland to see the collegiate team, who then featured star player Caitlin Clark.

Grassley Accuses Jack Smith of Tracking Sales of Red MAGA Hats To ‘Map Out the Entire Republican Party Apparatus’

Grassley Accuses Jack Smith of Tracking Sales of Red MAGA Hats To ‘Map Out the Entire Republican Party Apparatus’

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