The House Judiciary Committees latest hearing on Special Counsel Jack Smiths investigation into President Donald Trump has intensified concerns among conservatives about the politicization of federal law enforcement and the erosion of constitutional safeguards for elected officials.
According to RedState, Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio opened the proceedings by accusing Smith of weaponizing his office for partisan ends, arguing that the Trump probe was always about politics. Jordan highlighted that Smiths team obtained the phone records of then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy just 16 days after McCarthy assumed the gavel, sweeping up two months of toll data from Election Day 2020 through January 7, 2021, a period that included the certification of the presidential election.
Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas seized on that revelation, underscoring that Smith had targeted the communications of the highest-ranking Republican at the time and the leader of the opposition. You were collecting months' worth of phone data on the Republican Speaker of the House, leader of the opposition, right after he got sworn in as Speaker, all around the time of a major vote, Gill said, calling the move a blatant violation of the Constitutions Speech or Debate Clause.
Gill further exposed that Smith had secured a non-disclosure order preventing McCarthy and the public from learning that the Speakers phone records had been obtained. He pressed Smith on language in that order citing flight risk as part of the justification, and then drilled into the absurdity of suggesting that the Speaker of the House could reasonably be considered a flight risk to justify secret surveillance.
Smith attempted to deflect by claiming that the flight risk rationale did not apply solely to the phones subscriber, but Gill was having none of it. You were using clearly false information to secure a non-disclosure order to hide from Speaker McCarthy and the American people the fact that you were spying on his toll records! the Texas Republican charged, leaving Smith visibly rattled and struggling to respond.
McCarthy, for his part, publicly blasted the justification as laughable, noting that his movements were constantly monitored by federal security. As Speaker of the House, I had a 24/7 security detail and my location was known to the government at all times. Flight risk? Another of Jack Smiths many lies, McCarthy wrote, underscoring how implausible the governments claim truly was.
Gill also revealed that Smiths office did not stop with McCarthy, but in May 2023 obtained toll records for nine U.S. Senators and one House member, again under cover of non-disclosure orders. He stressed that this was done despite internal concerns about infringing the Speech or Debate Clause and despite no serious contemplation of criminal charges against those lawmakers.
From Gills perspective, Smith trampled the constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress, using secret court orders and dubious justifications to pry into the communications of political opponents. The exchange laid bare a pattern that many conservatives see as emblematic of a broader problem: a special counsel wielding extraordinary powers with minimal accountability, targeting President Trump and Republican leaders while stretching constitutional limits in the process.
Login