Senator Josh Hawley (R‑Mo.) has condemned Special Counsel Jack Smith’s handling of the Jan. 6 investigation, accusing the Biden DOJ of conducting politically motivated surveillance against Republican senators. He labeled the effort “Biden’s Stasi probe” and called it an “abuse of power beyond Watergate.”
Hawley says newly uncovered documents indicate the FBI — under Smith’s direction — secured call logs and metadata on nearly a dozen GOP senators. While not capturing the content of private conversations, he argues that even seizure of communication records without oversight is a dire threat to constitutional norms.
He charged that the alleged surveillance fits a broader pattern of executive overreach under the Biden administration, pointing to claims of monitoring Catholic churches, parents at school board meetings, and critics of pro‑life policies. Hawley demands a full, transparent investigation to hold accountable those who “knew about it, signed off on it, and had any part in it.”
Hawley insists the action “strikes at the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment,” placing it above past scandals in severity. He equated it to an offense worse than Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover’s surveillance era.
