GOP Chair of House Judiciary Seeks Jack Smith Prosecution

Criminal Referral Requested

Activelifezero.com – The GOP chair of House Judiciary Committee, Republican Representative Jim Jordan, formally requested that the Justice Department consider criminal charges against special counsel Jack Smith. In a letter obtained by CNN and sent Wednesday night, Jordan alleges that Smith misled committee members during closed-door testimony late last year. This referral represents a significant escalation in Republican efforts to scrutinize the special counsel’s investigative methods.

According to the criminal referral letter, Jordan’s concerns center on Smith’s prosecutors obtaining text messages between Trump administration officials and members of Congress. These communications were gathered during the investigation into Trump and his top aides’ response to the 2020 election loss. The Justice Department, now led by Trump’s former defense attorney Todd Blanche who is nearing Senate confirmation as attorney general, has already stated it “will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.” A department spokesperson confirmed receipt of Jordan’s referral.

This development fulfills a longstanding Republican objective to investigate and potentially prosecute Smith. President Trump, who returned to the presidency last year after Smith dismissed criminal charges against him, has repeatedly called for Smith’s imprisonment. On Thursday, the president took to social media regarding Jordan’s action, writing simply: “Justice at last???” While the Justice Department regularly receives criminal referrals from Congress, it retains discretion over whether to pursue charges or launch an investigation.

Smith’s Response and Defense

The current Republican-led Congress has previously asked the Justice Department to investigate other individuals from the Smith investigation who faced no charges. However, the present composition of the DOJ, combined with the president’s known desire to criminally pursue Smith and potentially rewrite findings related to January 6, 2021, gives Jordan’s move particular significance. Smith’s legal team responded in a letter sent late Wednesday to both Jordan and Blanche.

“Smith’s answers about his investigation looking at members’ communications were ‘unimpeachably truthful’ and that Jordan’s accusation that Smith made a false statement is ‘spurious,'” Smith’s lawyers wrote in their response.

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin criticized the GOP initiative, stating: “This referral, if ever brought before a judge, will get laughed out of court. But success on the merits is not the goal. It is meant to harass Jack Smith.” The Maryland Democrat added that the referral aims to “whitewash their own participation in a scheme to overthrow our elections.”

In his letter, the GOP chair of House Judiciary accuses Smith of taking investigative steps to “spy on Members of Congress” and making “half-truths” during a December deposition on Capitol Hill. Jordan specifically requests that the Justice Department examine whether Smith violated the law prohibiting false statements to Congress. Smith testified that his team secured search warrants only for toll records—logs of incoming and outgoing calls—but not for the content of members’ communications.

Smith’s counsel, Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski, argued in their response that the referral lacks merit. “The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement—the letter concedes he did not—but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked,” they wrote. They characterized the referral as reflecting “a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career, nonpartisan public servant.”

Jordan’s letter cites records obtained earlier this month showing that Smith’s team secured text messages from 44 members of Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats from each chamber. These messages may have contained privileged content. The special counsel’s office collected these records from the National Archives’ compendium of official White House phones from the first Trump administration. At that time, prosecutors were pursuing messages from top officials around the January 6, 2021, events, while members of Congress had been communicating with certain executive branch officials. Congressional members have also expressed concern for months over the Smith office obtaining toll records from phone companies, calling it a potential violation of Congress’s constitutional authority.