House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is urging the Justice Department to investigate former special counsel Jack Smith after he allegedly made false statements before Congress. His statements “contradict new documents obtained by the Committee,” Jordan’s letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says.
The letter goes on to state that during Smith’s deposition, the Committee explained that a “deliberate failure to disclose information could constitute a false statement.”
“Despite this admonition, when the Committee inquired about whether Mr. Smith’s office received content of text messages sent or received by Members of Congress, Mr. Smith’s answers excluded information that was highly relevant to the Committee’s examination of violations of the Speech or Debate Clause,” Jordan wrote. “In particular, while Mr. Smith testified that he did not seek a search warrant from telecommunications carriers for the content of Members’ text messages, he failed to disclose that his office received text message content from NARA relating to White House personnel phone records.”
“All individuals have an obligation to comply with a duly authorized congressional inquiry. Mr. Smith, a former public servant, is no different,” the congressman added. “Yet his testimony included intentionally false statements designed to obstruct the Committee’s oversight. His conduct can only be understood as an effort to thwart the Committee’s inquiry by intentionally making false statements and representations before Congress.”
The criminal referral comes as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) disclosed last week that the Justice Department notified him that Smith’s investigative team “secretly obtained” text messages from 44 members of Congress without following the department’s own filtering protocols.
In a joint report with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Grassley said the inquiry began after whistleblower tips led the two senators to request DOJ records. Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis confirmed in a letter to Grassley that Smith’s team “apparently bypassed” a designated document filtering team and “directly accessed these text messages.”
