Vice May Be Tightening on Jack Smith as GOP Senators Expose Staggering Scope of His Secret Surveillance of Trump Allies

The sweeping scope of the surveillance of Republican lawmakers and Trump advisors by Special Counsel Jack Smith during the Biden Administration is only now coming into clear view — and Republicans are seething anew at the hard charging prosecutor.Documents shared on Tuesday — a secret memorandum prepared by Mr. Smith’s office and appended emails — by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee as well Senator Charles Grassley provide the fullest glimpse yet of both of the special counsel’s cases against Mr. Trump. Both prosecutions ended in dismissals when the president defeated Vice President Kamala Harris and regained the White House. Swaths of the disclosures concern “Operation Arctic Frost,” the code name for Mr. Smith’s probe into alleged interference in the wake of the 2020 election that brought President Biden to power. The moniker derives from a frost-hardy breed of satsuma mandarin orange, which is the color of Mr. Trump’s iconic hair. The investigation was the subject of a heated House hearing on Tuesday where Mr. Grassley alleged that Mr. Smith “misled Congress and the public, if not outright lied.”Mr. Grassley reckons that the new documents “create additional questions about Smith’s conduct.” Mr. Trump has already accused the prosecutor who pursued him of being a “criminal” and has called for his prosecution. A “Weaponization Working Group” charted by Attorney General Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice whose remit includes investigating Mr. Smith.The memo prepared by Mr. Smith’s team that came to light on Tuesday lists 14 Republican lawmakers that were the targets of telephone surveillance by Mr. Smith’s team. Two of Mr. Smith’s subpoenas were directed at the current director of the FBI, Kash Patel, who was then a private citizen.The subpoena for the personal information about Mr. Patel – a former mid-level administration staffer who was an informal advisor to Mr. Trump and children’s book author – was extraordinarily elaborate. Just one part of the subpoena was for: “Telephone or instrument numbers (including MAC addresses, Electronic Serial Numbers (‘ESN’), Mobile Electronic Identity Numbers (‘MEIN’), Mobile Equipment Identifier (‘MEID’), Mobile Identification Numbers (‘MIN’), Subscriber Identity Modules (‘SIM’), Mobile Subscriber Integrated Services Digital Network Number (‘MSISDN’), International Mobile Subscriber Identifiers (‘IMSI’), or International Mobile Station Equipment Identities (‘IМЕГ’)).”Those 14 allies of Mr. Trump included Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, and Dan Sullivan. The prosecution documents also mention many Trump White House staffers who were on a list for potential surveillance. An email appended to the memo from a DOJ staffer declares that “We already have Jim Jordan’s phone tolls. We got them a few months back.” The memorandum also lists, as a “notable meeting,” a conference with Judge Beryl Howell.Judge Howell, a District of Columbia federal trial judge, heard many of the cases relating to the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. She also found the government’s executive orders aimed at law firms to be unconstitutional. In that decision she wrote “No American president has ever before issued executive orders like the one… this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare who penned the phrase ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’” Mr. Smith’s office appears to have been in sync with Judge Howell. A note reflects that “she liked our approach of pursuing the executive privilege litigation in an omnibus fashion,” meaning that the prosecutor intended to address all the objections to his probe at once rather than piecemeal. The memo also notes a meeting with Judge James Boasberg, who approved the subpoenas that allowed Mr. Smith to surveil the GOP lawmakers. Judge Boasberg and Mr. Trump have locked horns before, most notably in connection with the government’s use of the Alien Enemies Act. The president has called the judge, an appointee of President Obama, a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “constitutional disaster.” Mr. Trump has also pushed for Judge Boasberg’s impeachment, a notion that drew a rebuke from Chief Justice Roberts. America’s senior federal jurist explained that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” During Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Cruz referred to Mr. Boasberg as “a clown.” Mr. Smith appeared to grasp that the surveillance operation — and the possibility of criminal charges against lawmakers and the president — would precipitate legal challenges. The memo carves out time to discuss “the important precedent-setting issues we face in areas of executive privilege, Speech or Debate, and the scope and application of the relevant statutes we are considering charging.” Mr. Grassley’s disclosures also shed new light on Mr. Smith’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The memorandum prepared by Mr. Smith’s team alleges that Mr. Trump, in his post-presidency, showed a classified map to Susie Wiles, now his chief of staff, and that he retained a record so secret that only six people were authorized to view it.Another section of the prosecution memo ventures that Mr. Trump’s decision to retain the documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate was motivated by financial concerns. These glimpses of the special counsel’s thinking are especially tantalizing because Judge Aileen Cannon in South Florida has blocked the release of Mr. Smith’s final report on his Espionage Act case, which could have sent Mr. Trump to prison for decades. One Democrat, Congressman Jamie Raskin, alleged on Monday that Republicans violated Judge Cannon’s order, which bars the DOJ from releasing “any information or conclusions” from Mr. Smith’s final report. The DOJ on Tuesday responded by calling Mr. Raskin “blinded by hatred of President Trump” and denying that Judge Cannon’s command was ignored. Mr. Smith intended to argue that Mr. Trump’s retention of the documents amounted to “an aggravated potential harm to national security.” The case, though never made it to opening statements — let alone a jury verdict. Oral arguments over the fate of Mr. Smith’s Mar-a-Lago report are set for June before the 11th United States Appeals Circuit.

Vice May Be Tightening on Jack Smith as GOP Senators Expose Staggering Scope of His Secret Surveillance of Trump Allies

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