House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan made a criminal referral to the Justice Department on Wednesday, asking prosecutors to see if they can bring charges against former Special Counsel Jack Smith for cagey statements he made about obtaining lawmakers’ text messages.
Mr. Smith led a Justice Department special counsel probe of President Trump, which resulted in two now-dismissed criminal cases against the once-and-future president, including one related to the 2020 election.
As part of his probe, Mr. Smith sought to get phone records of members of Congress who he thought were involved with Mr. Trump’s election-related behavior.
Mr. Smith told Mr. Jordan’s committee last year that he only sought “toll records” but didn’t seek the contents of text messages.
But the Justice Department earlier this month told Congress that Mr. Smith’s probe did, in fact, get access to the contents of text messages because they communicated with people in the Trump White House whose texts Mr. Smith did obtain.
Mr. Smith then circumvented DOJ safeguards to get them, the new documents said.
“Based on this new information, there is cause for investigation to determine whether Mr. Smith knowingly made false statements to obstruct the committee’s oversight,” Mr. Jordan said.
He said excluding information or providing “a half-truth” would count as false statements under the law.
During the Dec. 17 closed-door deposition, Mr. Smith was asked whether he sought a search warrant for the contents of text messages. He replied: “No, I don’t recall that.”
He said he just sought “toll records” — which list the times and parties in a text exchange but don’t reveal contents.
Later, he was asked specifically whether the toll records he requested included “the content of text messages.” He replied, “no.”
Mr. Jordan said failing to reveal that he had access to the messages was misleading.
“The responses provided by Mr. Smith gave the impression that neither Mr. Smith nor his team had access to the content of members’ privileged text messages. We now know this to be false,” the Ohio Republican said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, denounced Mr. Jordan’s move to refer the matter to the Justice Department, saying it “embarrassed” the chairman and his fellow Republicans.
He said Mr. Smith was truthful in saying he didn’t seek the contents of text messages.
“Wishing that you had asked different questions while you had the opportunity to examine a witness is not a proper basis for a referral of a witness for criminal prosecution,” Mr. Raskin said.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had signaled in testimony on July 15 that he was thinking about Mr. Smith’s testimony.
“We take testimony in front of this body very seriously, yes,” Mr. Blanche said.
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