The very prosecutors who pursued President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents may have committed the same offense themselves, according to newly released messages obtained by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The Iowa Republican dropped the bombshell in a four-page letter sent Wednesday to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, revealing what he called “yet another double standard of justice” within the Biden-era Department of Justice.
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Grassley said in a statement. “According to these messages, Biden DOJ personnel may have committed the very offense for which Jack Smith was prosecuting President Trump.”
The messages, which Grassley says “appear related to Smith’s case against President Trump,” paint a troubling picture of carelessness with some of the nation’s most sensitive information. According to the letter, at least one individual was given access to classified materials without anyone confirming they had the requisite “need to know,” a basic security requirement for handling such documents.
But that’s not all. Grassley’s letter reveals that classified materials accessed by special counsel’s office personnel and housed in a Justice Department SCIF, a sensitive compartmented information facility designed to protect the nation’s secrets, were at one point unaccounted for during a potential movement.
Perhaps most alarming, “a violation and incident” occurred when a SCIF accessible to special counsel personnel was left open “at least overnight and potentially longer.”
These revelations strike at the heart of the prosecution that Jack Smith mounted against Trump from late 2022 through 2024. Smith secured a federal grand jury indictment against the former president for allegedly mishandling classified information at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. That case was eventually dismissed on procedural grounds.
Smith also obtained an indictment in Washington, D.C., related to Trump’s conduct in challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. He dropped that case after Trump won the 2024 election.
“While Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden escaped accountability for mishandling highly classified information, Jack Smith and the Biden DOJ set out to paint President Trump as a felon and ruin him politically,” Grassley continued. “These and other records I’ve made public show the Biden Justice Department was unquestionably careless, not to mention highly hypocritical.”
The senator isn’t letting the matter rest with a press release. He’s given Blanche a July 22 deadline to answer pointed questions about the apparent security lapses.
Grassley wants to know whether the potentially mishandled classified material was used to prosecute Trump. He’s also demanding answers about whether the Biden Justice Department conducted any investigation into Smith’s team having access to classified information without first confirming their need to know.
Additionally, the chairman is seeking the names and positions of all special counsel and Justice Department staff who were granted access to the classified information in question.
For Americans who watched the Biden administration’s Justice Department pursue Trump with what many conservatives viewed as unprecedented zeal, Grassley’s revelations confirm long-held suspicions. The rules, it seems, applied differently depending on which side of the political aisle you stood.
The messages raise serious questions about whether justice was truly blind during the Trump prosecutions, or whether those charged with enforcing the law held themselves to a different standard than the man they were investigating.
