{"id":4483,"date":"2026-07-14T18:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4483"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:39:09","slug":"jack-smith-team-read-messages-between-trump-officials-dozens-of-lawmakers-of-both-parties-ran-roughshod-over-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4483","title":{"rendered":"Jack Smith team read messages between Trump officials, dozens of lawmakers of both parties: ‘Ran roughshod over the Constitution’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 More than 40 members of Congress had their text messages viewed by former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s team amid a probe into President Trump, a move that Republicans say \u201cran roughshod over the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump says FBI \u2018wasting their time\u2019 at Sen. Lindsey Graham\u2019s home<\/a><\/p>\n

The Department of Justice released records to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday revealing that the special counsel\u2019s office had accessed communications between Trump White House personnel and 44 lawmakers from both parties.<\/p>\n

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the current ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), now the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, were just some of the new names whose messages were seen.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s office had established a so-called \u201cFilter Team\u201d to ensure they weren\u2019t accessing privileged documents when reviewing messages that had been sought by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).<\/p>\n

The archives had sought all messages between the lawmakers and White House employees between October 2020 and Jan. 20, 2021.<\/p>\n

The filter team was supposed to evaluate evidence obtained as part of \u201cProject Coconut,\u201d which was looking into Trump\u2019s efforts to reverse the 2020 election, and \u201cProject Cranberry,\u201d which concerned Trump\u2019s alleged hoarding of national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.<\/p>\n

An Aug. 21, 2023, internal DOJ email included in the records Grassley received shows that Smith\u2019s team discussed directly obtaining \u201c54 excel files with text messages from White House phones,\u201d which were placed in a shared drive.<\/p>\n

Read more Manhattan luxury real estate market plummets after Mamdani pied-\u00e0-terre tax goes into effect<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis told Grassley in the letter that Smith\u2019s team \u201cbypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages. The FBI then identified the people whose phone numbers sent or received the texts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJack Smith\u2019s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,\u201d Grassley said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the information that\u2019s been produced to me and Senator [Ron] Johnson [R-Wis.], Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government\u2019s investigation,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions. Smith\u2019s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Hero pilot Capt. Sully Sullenberger shares heartbreaking health update<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty-four members of Congress had their text messages viewed by former special counsel Jack Smith’s team amid a probe into President Trump, in an move that Republicans say “ran roughshod over the Constitution.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nJack Smith team read messages between Trump officials, dozens of lawmakers of both parties: 'Ran roughshod over the Constitution' - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4483\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jack Smith team read messages between Trump officials, dozens of lawmakers of both parties: 'Ran roughshod over the Constitution' - 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