On Wednesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) sent a letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith demanding information and communications from the Office of Special Counsel as it continues its unprecedented investigation and prosecution of President Biden’s chief opponent in the upcoming presidential election.
The Committee is conducting oversight in order to inform potential legislative reforms, including possible reforms regarding politically motivated prosecutions of current and former Presidents by federal prosecutors and disclosure requirements for Special Counsels and their staff. If the Department of Justice continues stonewalling the investigation, the Committee may be forced to resort compulsory process.
Excerpts of the Letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith:
“Based on publicly available information, the Committee has significant concerns about your commitment to evenhanded justice. You have a record of attempting to criminalize political discourse, as evidenced by your reported interest in how the Justice Department could prosecute conservative tax-exempt groups engaging in constitutionally protected political speech. Your staff appointments for the Office of Special Counsel also lead to concern about your commitment to fairness and justice. For example, one senior attorney in your office reportedly once pushed for an investigation into a conservative figure so adamantly that Department leaders worried that the attorney ‘could expose the department to accusations that it had politicized the probe.’ The bullying tactics of Mr. Bratt, as we have detailed in our September 7 letter, only reinforce the perception that you and your staff are more interested in winning the case than in doing justice.
“To compound our existing concerns about the actions of our office, we recently learned that you had compelled from Twitter voluminous amounts of private information—including core political speech—of millions of Americans, without an apparent specialized nexus to criminal activity. Accordingly, the Committee is conducting oversight in order to inform potential legislative reforms, including possible reforms regarding politically motivated prosecutions of current and former Presidents by federal prosecutors and disclosure requirements for Special Counsels and their staff. To allow the Committee to fulfill its oversight responsibilities, please produce the following information:
1. All documents and communications between or among the Office of Special Counsel, the Office of the Attorney General, or the Office of the Deputy Attorney General referring or relating to the investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump;
2. All documents and communications sufficient to identify the universe of current and former Office of Special Counsel staff members, including but not limited to the following information:
a. Salaries for each Office of Special Counsel member of staff;
b. Travel costs incurred and trips taken by each Office of Special Counsel member of staff as it relates to the investigation and prosecution of President Trump; and
c. The organizational structure of the Office of Special Counsel.
3. All documents and communications referring or relating to the hiring and selection of current and former Office of Special Counsel staff members, including but not limited to the following information:
a. Job postings or solicitations;
b. Hiring criteria or prospective employees’ evaluations;
c. Communications between the Office of Special Counsel and prospective employees; and
4. All documents and communications referring or relating to the ‘Warrant by Telephone or Other Reliable Electronic Means,’ filed In the Matter of the Search of Information That Is Stored at Premises Controlled by Twitter Inc., Identified in Attachment A, Case No. 23-SC-31 (D.D.C. 2023).”
Read the full letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith here.
