Congressional Text Messages Reviewed in Trump Investigation

WASHINGTON — Over 40 members of Congress had their text messages accessed by former special counsel Jack Smith’s team during the investigation into President Trump, a situation Republicans are labeling as “unconstitutional.”

On Tuesday, the Justice Department disclosed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) records showing that Smith’s office accessed communications between President Trump’s team and 44 members across both parties.

Among the newly identified individuals are Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the current ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency.

Smith’s team created what they termed a “filter team” to guard against accessing privileged documents while reviewing the messages requested by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The archives were looking for all communications between Congress members and White House staff from October 2020 to January 20, 2021.

This filter team assessed evidence as part of Project Coconut, which investigates Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and Project Cranberry, looking into Trump’s alleged mishandling of national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

An internal email from the Justice Department, dated August 21, 2023, included in the records received by Grassley, revealed that Smith’s team discussed retrieving “54 Excel files containing text messages directly from White House phones” that were found on a shared drive.

Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis informed Grassley in a letter that Smith’s team “circumvented the filter team and accessed these text messages directly.” The FBI later identified who sent and received the text messages from that phone number.

Grassley expressed concern, stating, “Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train with no brakes.” He noted that, based on the information available to him and Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), it seems that the Biden Justice Department and FBI agents ignored their own standard procedures to obtain and review work-related messages from both Republican and Democratic colleagues, which were outside the investigation’s limits.

He urged his Democratic colleagues—some of whom have lost documents—to transcend partisanship and recognize the seriousness of these actions. “Mr. Smith’s team, despite repeated warnings, committed a violent act against the Constitution,” he continued. Grassley plans to call Jack Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee to demand accountability.