‘Pot Calling the Kettle Black’: Republicans Accuse Jack Smith of Mishandling Documents After He Did Same to Trump

Senator Charles Grassley is accusing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office of potentially mishandling classified materials amid Mr. Smith’s own investigation into President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents,” a scenario that Mr. Grassley likened to “the pot calling the kettle black.”In 2023 Mr. Smith charged the president with 40 criminal counts connected to the retention of secret documents at Mar-a-Lago. The accusation of mishandled confidential documents may mark the beginning of an effort to prosecute the prosecutor.“According to these messages, Biden DOJ personnel may have committed the very offense for which Jack Smith was prosecuting President Trump.” He notes that while both Secretary Clinton and President Biden were investigated for mishandling classified documents, neither of them faced criminal charges. Mr. Grassley calls that evidence for a “double standard of justice.”Mr. Grassley, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sources his allegations to messages obtained from the Department of Justice pursuant to oversight requests. He accuses a member of Mr. Smith’s office of being given access to classified materials without confirming they had the requisite “need to know.” He also writes that the “potential movement of classified materials housed in a DOJ sensitive compartment information facility (SCIF) was unaccounted for” and that one SCIF was left open overnight. Mr. Grassley has relayed his findings to the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and writes that the messages uncovered “appear related to Smith’s case against President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified materials, and I write to seek additional information in that regard.” Any decision to charge a member of Mr. Smith’s team — or the special counsel himself — would ultimately be made by Mr. Blanche. Last week Mr. Smith told MS NOW’s Nicole Wallace that a criminal indictment of him by the Department of Justice “could happen” and accused the Trump administration of pursuing “retribution prosecutions.” In testimony before Congress earlier this year Mr. Smith asserted that government lawyers would do “everything in their power” to bring criminal charges. He has accused Mr. Trump of having “corrupted” the Justice Department. The president has called for Mr. Smith to be “prosecuted for his actions.”Mr. Blanche was Mr. Trump’s primary defense attorney in the classified documents case charged by Mr. Smith at the Southern District of Florida. Some legal observers judged it to be the strongest — on the basis of the material evidence — of the four criminal cases arrayed against Mr. Trump. Mr. Smith charged him with dozens of counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, a statute dating from World War One that imposes lengthy prison sentences. The convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted under a different section of the same statute.Mr. Smith’s case, though, foundered after Judge Aileen Cannon found that he had been unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. She ruled that the taint of that defective appointment could only be remedied by dismissing the charges against not only Mr. Trump but also his two co-defendants, the valet, Waltine Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago’s property manager, Carlos De Oliveira. Mr. Smith appealed the dismissal, but that petition was withdrawn after Mr. Trump won reelection in the fall of 2024.Judge Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Mr. Trump in 2020, appeared skeptical of the case from the beginning. After the search of Mar-a-Lago at the case’s inception — that preceded Mr. Smith’s appointment — she appointed a special master, or independent expert, to supervise the government’s handling of the material found at the Palm Beach manse. That appointment was overturned by the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court.Judge Cannon also ordered that Mr. Smith’s final report on the case be “permanently blocked” from publication. She accused him of a “brazen stratagem” to publish his dispatch even after he was disqualified. That decision is being appealed by two liberal legal groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia. The 11th Circuit will hear arguments in September. Mr. Trump wants the report destroyed. One other person has faced charges stemming from L’affaire Mar-a-Lago. A former federal prosecutor, Carmen Lineberger, was charged last week with emailing herself a copy of Mr. Smith’s final report disguised as “Bundt Cake Recipe” and “Chocolate Cake Recipe.” She has pleaded “not guilty” to multiple charges including theft of government property, alteration of records, and mutilation or concealment of public record.

‘Pot Calling the Kettle Black’: Republicans Accuse Jack Smith of Mishandling Documents After He Did Same to Trump

‘Pot Calling the Kettle Black’: Republicans Accuse Jack Smith of Mishandling Documents After He Did Same to Trump

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