As a Trump Indictment Over Mar-a-Lago Documents Looms, Jim Jordan Locks Horns With Merrick Garland

Updated at 7:45 P.M. E.D.T.As Special Counsel Jack Smith appears to be wrapping up his criminal inquiry of President Trump in respect of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the prosecutor’s problems with lawmakers — and their constitutional role — could be just beginning. The investigator is now facing an investigation.The scrutiny of Mr. Smith comes as Politico reports Wednesday evening that federal prosecutors have “notified” Mr. Trump by letter than he’s the target of a criminal investigation. CNN later confirmed the report.Earlier in the day, after the journalist and Trump confidant John Solomon first tweeted that “Feds inform Trump he is target likely to be indicted,” a one-time reporter at The New York Sun, Maggie Haberman, tweeted that she asked Mr. Trump if he had indeed been informed of an indictment. He responded that “it’s not true,” and, in her words, “demurred” when asked if he has been told he is a target of a criminal investigation. Ms. Haberman, in her own words, said that Mr. Trump told her that he “doesn’t talk directly to prosecutors.” Shortly afterward, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social: “No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong …”He went on to denounce the “WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI … and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS.”When it comes to said “weaponization,” Mr. Trump has a strong ally in Congressman Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and also of that committee’s select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. Mr. Jordan has emerged as Mr. Smith’s primary antagonist on Capitol Hill. His committee has been investigating the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago last August, which netted 33 boxes of material, 13 of which contained just more than 100 documents marked classified. Now, a letter from Mr. Jordan, which cites his interest in the “unprecedented raid of President Trump’s residence,” requests an “unredacted copy of the memorandum outlining the scope of Mr. Smith’s probes regarding President Trump.” It also requests any other document “describing, listing, or delineating the authority and jurisdiction of the special counsel.” The order from Attorney General Garland gives Mr. Smith the power “prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation” of both the cache of documents at Mr. Trump’s seat at Palm Beach, as well, in the words of the Department of Justice, “efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.”Mr. Garland’s order from November bears his signature. Mr. Jordan wants a high-resolution view of the mandate of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer by June 20.If General Garland refuses to comply with Mr. Jordan’s demand, the lawmaker’s next task would — or could — be to convince a court that Mr. Smith’s work is of valid interest to not only a former president, but sitting lawmakers as well. While the publicly released version of that order bears no markings of redaction, it appears as if Mr. Jordan is after hitherto unseen materials that he believes will deliver insight into the process whereby the longtime war crimes prosecutor was summoned from the Hague to superintend the cases against Mr. Trump. This is not the first time Mr. Jordan has turned his sights on Mr. Trump’s pursuers. He previously locked horns with District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who handed up criminal charges against Mr. Trump in connection to hush money payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels. That confrontation centered on a subpoena issued to one of Mr. Bragg’s former deputies, Mark Pomerantz. While that conflict was settled with a deal struck between Messrs. Bragg and Jordan, it surfaced a host of constitutional issues. The district attorney called Mr. Jordan’s subpoena a “brazen and unconstitutional attack” and the author of a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” a state official. For his part, Mr. Jordan described the situation differently. “First, they indict a president for no crime,” he wrote on Twitter. “Then, they sue to block congressional oversight when we ask questions about the federal funds they say they used to do it.” He added that the “prospect of a politically motivated prosecution of a former President could give rise to issues of substantial federal concern.”That contretemps between the congressman and the district attorney centered on the division of criminal jurisdiction between the federal and state governments. Mr. Jordan’s looming showdown with Mr. Smith, though, appears likely to inflame tensions between the legislative and executive branches, to the latter of which Mr. Smith belongs. The Supreme Court has ruled that congressional subpoenas, inasmuch as they are intrusions into the autonomy of the executive branch, must possess a “valid legislative purpose.” While the congressional right to investigation is not explicitly inscribed in the Constitution, it is pursuant its charge to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.” A high court case from 1959, Barenblatt v. United States, ventured that the power of investigation is “perhaps the most necessary of all the powers underlying the legislative function.” An earlier case, from 1927, noted that Congress “cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information.”Channeling this prerogative, House rules mandates that “each Committee is authorized at any time to conduct such investigations and studies as it may consider necessary and appropriate in the exercise of its responsibilities.”

As a Trump Indictment Over Mar-a-Lago Documents Looms, Jim Jordan Locks Horns With Merrick Garland

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