Good day all. With all that’s been going on, this story slipped under the radar. A report has come out that Jack Smith’s getting subpoenas for sitting members of Congress was approved by the Biden maladministration.
It has been known for a while that Smith decided to go after the Republicans in the Senate and House. He went to the Trump hating judge James Boasberg to have him sign off on the subpoenas and added a gag order forbidding the phone companies from informing the Sargent at Arms. This was a major violation of the law and Boasberg is trying to dig himself out of that mess. (That’s a post for another day)
It’s been assumed that Smith was acting on his own. Now it looks like that the Biden Maladministration knew what Smith was doing was illegal and approved his actions anyway. Here are the details from the Federalist:
The Biden Administration okayed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoenaing congressional phone records knowing the subpoenas were unconstitutional, emails released last week revealed. That same trove of documents also established the illegality of the nondisclosure orders issued by the courts to prevent the telecommunication providers from alerting the members of Congress of the unconstitutional seizure of their toll records.
Last week, as the nation turned its attention ahead to travel and turkey, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released another two dozen documents related to the Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoenaing of congressional phone records. A May 17, 2023 email from the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice to Smith’s team proves explosive, with the Public Integrity Section “concur[ring] in the subpoenas for toll records for the identified Members of Congress.”
I would like to know who in the Public Integrity Section thought that breaking the law was a good idea? I would also like to know if they still have a job if they weren’t a Biden appointee.
This email may represent the first public evidence that the Biden Administration’s DOJ knew the special counsel’s office planned to subpoena congressional Republicans. But the scandal is even greater because in “concurring” in Smith’s use of subpoenas to target communications of members of Congress, the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section expressly acknowledged the unconstitutionality of the proposed course of action.
This is what legal types like to refer to as the “Smoking gun.” It shows just how much contempt the Biden Administration had for the Rule of Law and the Constitution when it came to going after their perceived enemies. Now what a lot of people might not either remember or ever knew was just how many of the people in the Biden Maladministration were actually Obama sycophants. Since Biden was mentally out for lunch permanently, these people were the ones actually running things.
“As you are aware, there is some litigation risk regarding whether compelled disclosure of toll records of a Member’s legislative calls violates the Speech or Debate Clause in the D.C. Circuit,” Principal Deputy Chief of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section John Keller wrote in a May 17, 2023 email to two top members of the special counsel’s team.
Which it does, especially with electronics issued to the members of Congress by the Sargent at Arms’s office.
Significantly, that email then cited the controlling precedent of United States v. Rayburn House Office Building, 497 F.3d 654, 662 (D.C. Cir. 2007), citing that appellate court decision’s holding that under the Speech or Debate Clause, “[t]he bar on compelled disclosure is absolute.”
That email also cited In re Grand Jury Investigation, 587 F.2d 589, 594 (3d Cir. 1978) as establishing “[t]he caselaw is clear that a legislator asserting the invasion of the Speech or Debate Clause privilege by use of a grand jury subpoena to a third party may intervene and oppose such use.”
Well, that is pretty clear even to someone as repulsed by legalese as I am. However, the Biden maladministration didn’t care that they were breaking the law and went ahead with this clear violation anyway.
The Biden Administration agreed with Special Counsel Smith’s decision to subpoena the congressional Republicans’ telephone records. The oxymoronically named Public Integrity Section justified its concurrence based on its “understanding of the low likelihood that any of the Members listed below would be charged,” and therefore “the litigation risk should be minimal here.”
And that explains the order by Boasberg to the phone companies to not inform congress. To bad for that judicial tyrant that AT&T told him to go pound sand and informed the appropriate authorities and individuals using their service about the subpoena.
In other words, the Biden Administration ignored Smith’s blatant violation of congressional Republicans’ constitutional rights under the Speech or Debate Clause because the special counsel’s office was unlikely to criminally charge any of the congressional Republicans — and therefore, there was little “litigation risk” that a court would exclude the unconstitutionally seized evidence.
The Federalist story goes into all the little details of the orders by the judge(s) to the phone companies and the reasons for them. The short answer is to prevent destruction of the records. The problem here is that none of the people that Smith was getting the records for were even targets and they were never going to be charged. (I think that would have happened next if Smith had been able to railroad President Trump into prison. I also don’t think that any of these idiots ever considered what would have happened next if they actually did all this)
Given that the special counsel’s team — with the concurrence of the DOJ — believed it unlikely that any of the congressional Republicans would face criminal charges, it is inconceivable that the special counsel’s office would nonetheless represent to a court that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe disclosing the subpoena to the members of Congress would result in the destruction or tampering of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, or otherwise jeopardized the investigation.
And this is why I asked if any of these morons were still employed by the United States Government. I also would like to know if they can face criminal charges for their actions. I certainly hope they can face, at the very least, civil actions and that they can be sued into oblivion.
Sen. Grassley’s release last week reveals another significant fact, namely that Special Counsel Smith was fully aware of his team’s plans to subpoena congressional Republicans. Specifically, Smith’s lead prosecutors emailed the special counsel on May 17, 2023, attaching a copy of their memo stating they “intend to subpoena toll records for January 4, 2021, to January 7, 2021, for Senators Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Bill Hagerty, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Ron Johnson, John Kennedy, Tim Scott, Dan Sullivan, and Tommy Tuberville, and Representative Mike Kelly.”
And these people are absolutely furious.
The special counsel replied to that email by requesting Raymond Hulser, who had authored the memorandum along with J.P. Cooney, to “stop by.” Then, after Husler added two citations to the memorandum following their meeting, Smith “approved” the subpoenaing of the congressional Republicans.
This was nothing more than a fishing expedition. I also believe that Smith, who has a long history of prosecutorial misconduct, may have had an idea that he could also go after and charge a number of Republicans, helping the Democrat party.
Whether Smith also approved the seeking of a nondisclosure order remains to be seen, as does what specifically the special counsel’s office stated in its application for the nondisclosure order to Judge Boasberg — an order that never should have been issued.
Oh I don’t have any doubt that Smith approved the NDO that Boasberg granted. He is absolute pond scum. When he was with the Government, he went after a number of alleged corrupt politicians. One was a mistrial and another was overturned by the Supreme Court. That was the Republican governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. He was convicted and eventually the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction.
Smith, after resigning from his special counsel position has basically has dropped off the map. It looks like he and others are going to be called to account for their actions before congressional oversight committees, and I suspect that the Bondi’s DoJ is now looking into potential criminal charges.
Judge Boasberg is currently trying to dig himself out of the hole he’s in. However, a bill of impeachment has been filed against him for his actions regarding Arctic Frost, the Non-Disclosure Order, the subpoenas themselves along with all his antics regarding the Trump Administration. Most people think that the Democrats will protect him, but if the GOP plays this right in Senate trial, if it gets that far, Boasberg could be removed. (How to play this? “He Dems, consider what might happen if it were Republican judges doing this to the Democrats. Best nip this in the bud now)
I have no idea what is going to happen next. It’s not impossible that next year, while the midterm elections are underway, that we might see a Watergate style hearing into the actions of Smith, the Biden Maladministration, The Garland DoJ and a whole host of other things. What is coming out now shows just how close we came to really bad things kicking off.
As it is, the Judicial branch is no longer seen as a neutral arbitrator and this is a really bad thing. There is a reckoning coming, be it scrapping and rebuilding the inferior courts or even amendments to the Constitution to remove the lifetime appointments and make it easier to remove judges who do things like grant subpoenas with NDO’s of members of Congress. I wonder what history is going to say in 50 years?
Thatisall
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