‘Stalin Would Be Proud’: Jack Smith Compared to ‘Secret Police’ as More Surveillance of Trump-Supporting Lawmakers Exposed

The disclosure that Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to surveil telephone data from three more Republican lawmakers than was previously known could escalate scrutiny of the dogged prosecutor. Internal emails from the Department of Justice disclosed this week show that Congressmen Brian Babin of Texas, Andy Biggs, of Arizona, and the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, all were scrutinized by the special counsel. Mr. Zeldin, of New York, was serving in the House on January 6, 2021. All three men were strong supporters of President Trump. It is not known if Mr. Smith obtained subpoenas to surveil this latest batch of lawmakers. Mr. Smith was pulling the phone records as he was aggressively racing the clock to charge, try and convict Mr. Trump before the 2024 election. Mr. Trump was indicted in August 2023, but Mr. Smith’s case suffered a major setback eleven months later when the Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Trump’s favor on presidential immunity. That hobbled Mr. Smith’s case, which never made it to trial and was dismissed when Mr. Trump won reelection.The three GOP politicians join a list of some 10 Republican senators and another congressman — all of whom were supportive of Mr. Trump when he was challenging the results of the 2020 election — whose telephone metadata was also accessed. The growing list suggests that the overarching investigation, codenamed “Operation Arctic Frost” — named for a frost-hardy breed of satsuma mandarin orange, the color of Mr. Trump’s iconic hair — was more sprawling than has been previously known. The probe was aimed at convicting Mr. Trump for election interference. Mr. Biggs declared in a statement following the latest disclosure that “Joe Biden’s secret police pursued a level of government surveillance that Stalin would be proud of. It’s an absurd abuse of power and a disgusting invasion of privacy.” Mr. Smith has testified that his office’s handling of “Operation Arctic Frost” was “entirely proper.” The data he sought would have included dates, times and phone numbers but not the content of calls and messages that the targets exchanged in the weeks leading up to January 6, 2021. Mr. Smith explained “I did not choose those members, President Trump did.”Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the senators whose phone records were subpoenaed, calls the probe “a major breakdown of constitutional checks and balances.” Internal DOJ emails released last year show that Mr. Smith’s team — and Attorney General Merrock Garland’s DOJ more broadly — were concerned about at least one constitutional issue — the Speech or Debate Clause.That provision of the Constitution ordains that lawmakers “shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” It has been interpreted as protecting acts related to legislative activity.Mr. Smith was in pursuit of those he deemed “conspired to corruptly obstruct the United States Congress’ certification of the 2020 Presidential election results by submitting allegedly fraudulent elector certificates.” That list could stretch to more than 160 names, only a fraction of which have entered the public domain. Mr. Smith only pursued criminal charges against Mr. Trump, who pleaded “not guilty.” In October Attorney General Pam Bondi testified that Mr. Smith’s surveillance — which also included non-disclosure orders directed at telecommunications companies — amounted to “an unconstitutional, undemocratic abuse of power.” The subpoenas and non-disclosure orders were approved by Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of President Obama who has locked horns with the president, most notably on deportation policy. Ms. Bondi has called Judge Boasberg “an out of control judge.” Another subject of Arctic Frost, Senator Cruz, has called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached for greenlighting the probe. The lawmaker said in November that “Judge Boasberg was the one who made findings that he had no basis for. And when he did that, he took off his judicial robe. He became a partisan crusader.”Judge Boasberg this month quashed subpoenas related to the criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Judge Jeanine Pirro, who was heading the investigation, called him “an activist judge.”So incensed were Senate Republicans at what they took to be Mr. Smith’s unlawful intrusion into their private data that they tucked a provision into an appropriations bill that would have allowed senators who were surveilled without their knowledge to sue for $500,000 for each instance in which their data was accessed. The provision, though, did not survive the House of Representatives.Mr. Smith told lawmakers during his public testimony that “I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.” The president, though, has called for him to be prosecuted. Mr. Smith acknowledges that he would be unsurprised if he becomes a target of the DOJ.

‘Stalin Would Be Proud’: Jack Smith Compared to ‘Secret Police’ as More Surveillance of Trump-Supporting Lawmakers Exposed

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