Democrats spent three years telling America Jack Smith ran the most ethical investigation in modern history.
New DOJ records released tell a very different story.
What those files prove Smith's team was actually doing has at least one senator already using the word perjury.
How Jack Smith Spied on 44 Members of Congress
Arctic Frost was the Biden DOJ's codename for its sprawling criminal investigation into Donald Trump and the 2020 election – and they built a safeguard into it for exactly this kind of situation.
Every text message pulled from the National Archives had to clear a "filter team" before Smith's investigators could touch it – a firewall built to protect executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, and the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause.
Smith's investigators went around it.
A DOJ cover letter signed by Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis confirmed Smith's investigative team "apparently bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages."
The FBI then matched the phone numbers to lawmakers' identities.
Those messages – 54 Excel files dumped into a shared drive under the codenames Project Coconut and Project Cranberry – ran between October 2020 and January 20, 2021.
The Trump White House officials whose phones were mined read like a first-term roster: Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Mike Pence – and two who now run Trump's entire intelligence apparatus – CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel.
The 44 lawmakers swept up in the dragnet include Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley himself, Sens. Susan Collins, Tom Cotton, Ron Johnson, the late Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Rep. Elise Stefanik, and now-EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Jack Smith Lied Under Oath About Reading Their Text Messages
Seven months ago, Smith sat before the House Judiciary Committee under oath and a committee lawyer asked a direct question.
"It was just toll records?" the lawyer pressed.
Smith answered: "Correct."
Later in the same deposition, asked explicitly whether the toll records his office obtained from members of Congress included the content of text messages, Smith answered: "No."
Those two answers are now the center of a perjury conversation on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Josh Hawley posted three words on X: "Looks like perjury."
Smith's sworn answers look worse when you examine the written corrections he quietly filed with the committee after the deposition closed.
When asked whether any lawmaker's phone had been seized, Smith had written "I don't know" – then changed it afterward to "I don't – no."
In a second correction, Smith deleted the word "text" from "text records" – a reference to evidence that certain Jan. 6 calls took place – leaving just "records."
The committee never knew to ask about the National Archives trove.
Smith never volunteered that his investigators already had the actual contents of members' messages.
Biden DOJ Weaponization Trampled a 235-Year-Old Protection
The Speech or Debate Clause has shielded congressional independence from executive power since the nation's founding.
The Framers put it in the Constitution because English kings had spent centuries using criminal prosecution to silence, intimidate, and imprison members of Parliament who said things the Crown didn't like.
Federal courts have been unambiguous: executive branch investigators cannot dig through lawmakers' legislative communications without first giving members the chance to assert that privilege.
The D.C. Circuit found the FBI violated the Clause in 2007 when it raided Rep. William Jefferson's congressional office – specifically because the filter team process denied him the chance to identify and assert privilege before executive agents reviewed his materials.
Smith's team received that same warning.
The DOJ's own Public Integrity Section put it in writing: the congressional subpoenas violated the Speech or Debate Clause.
They pressed forward anyway.
"Jack Smith's criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes," Senator Chuck Grassley said. "Smith's team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings."
Sen. Ron Johnson called it another grotesque example of Biden-era DOJ weaponization, adding that Smith acted with "recklessness and blatant abuse of power."
Jack Smith Now Faces a Perjury Investigation
Grassley confirmed Smith will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the word "perjury" will be hanging in the room when he does.
A federal judge already ruled Smith's appointment was illegal. His office mishandled classified documents while actively prosecuting Trump for that exact offense.
And now DOJ records confirm he secretly read the private messages of the Senate Judiciary chairman running his oversight – then swore to Congress he hadn't.
Biden's DOJ didn't just target Donald Trump.
It ran surveillance on the entire branch of government whose constitutional job was to hold it accountable – and then lied about it to Congress.
Sources:
- Cristina Laila, "BREAKING: Grassley Reveals Jack Smith Spied on 44 Members of Congress," The Gateway Pundit, July 14, 2026.
- "Jack Smith's Team Read Text Messages From 44 Lawmakers, Senate Panel Says," The Epoch Times, July 14, 2026.
- "Unearthed Records Reveal Scale Of Jack Smith's Arctic Frost Text Message Spying Spree," The Daily Caller, July 14, 2026.
- "Jack Smith Team Reviewed Texts Involving 44 Lawmakers: Records," Washington Examiner, July 14, 2026.
- Rudy Takala, "Bombshell Revelation: Jack Smith Spied on 44 Members of Congress," PJ Media, July 14, 2026.
- Kerry Picket, "Jack Smith's 'Arctic Frost' Team Spied on Lawmakers' Texts Without Shielding Privileged Info," The Washington Times, July 14, 2026.
- "NEWS: Jack Smith's Investigative Team Secretly Obtained Text Messages from 44 Members of Congress Amid Trump Probe," Senate Judiciary Committee, July 14, 2026.
