jack smith - The Latremie Post

Having secured Democratic capitulation on a deal fat with empty promises, Senate Republican leader John Thune made sure that the agreement also addressed one of the president’s most important issues — whitewashing the insurrection of January 6, 2021. And, needless to say, he did so with the tacit approval of seven Democratic senators. It is, as they say, a “bipartisan” bill.

From Politico:

In an interview Monday evening, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)—who claims he was one of the lawmakers to have his data subpoenaed as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election—said Thune was responsible for the inclusion of the provision.

“Leader Thune inserted that in the bill to provide real teeth to the prohibition on the Department of Justice targeting senators,” Cruz said.

A person close with direct knowledge of the legislation’s negotiations, granted anonymity to speak candidly, confirmed Thune oversaw the inclusion of the provision. It was tucked into the legislative branch spending measure for fiscal year 2026, part of a three-bill “minibus” of appropriations measures that Senators were set to vote on Monday night alongside a continuing resolution to fund the government through January 30.

The House is expected to clear the package for President Donald Trump’s signature as early as Wednesday.

Thune’s involvement is notable as the revelations that Smith collected phone records for several Senate Republicans have emboldened GOP lawmakers, prompting them to deflect Democrats’ accusations of weaponization of the Trump Justice Department and claim that President Joe Biden’s DOJ was looking to target conservatives.

Much as I’d like to believe that the “Tailgunner” ran his mouth about this in order to keep Thune in line, I think the Republican leader is all-in on his president’s project to consign January 6 to political and historical incoherence.

Thune is a bloodless, colorless politician who looks like the guy who chairs the banquet committee at a decent public country club. His career has been unremarkable. He has proven to be as pliable as the president needs him to be—a perfect supporting actor.

A perfect combination of legislator and apparatchik, Thune knows all his lines and how to hit all his marks.

“The abuse of power from the Biden Justice Department is the worst single instance of politicization our country has ever seen,” Cruz continued. “I think it is Joe Biden’s Watergate, and the statutory prohibition needs to have real teeth and real consequences.”

Because, while he is bloodless and colorless, Thune is not stupid. He knows good and well why Smith subpoenaed the limited phone records of the senators. At the time, there was an attempt to overturn the 2020 election that touched, in one way or another, the entire Republican party—very much including its legislative branch.

It was dead center in Jack Smith’s mandate to inquire what contact, if any, the White House of the time had with Republican senators.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a69384900/john-thune-jack-smith-watergate/

Former special counsel Jack Smith is calling Republicans’ bluff, turning the tables Thursday by requesting to testify publicly in open hearings before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Smith’s attorneys made the request this week in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

“As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol,” Smith’s lawyers wrote.

Grassley has accused Smith of improperly spying on Republican lawmakers during the Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump.

“I think it’s important that he’s speaking up in a way to kind of demystify what has been grossly misrepresented to the American people by the senators,” former FBI Deputy Director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said Thursday on CNN’s *The Arena* with anchor Kasie Hunt.

In that testimony from a few weeks ago, McCabe explained, “Toll records are a very rudimentary kind of first step investigative technique in many, many, many, almost all investigations. And it’s typically done early in an investigation when you have an allegation and you’re trying to determine — you’re trying to vet an allegation to even see if there’s something worth investigating.”

He added, “So if someone comes to you, let’s say a situation like this, if someone makes an allegation that they have information that the president contacted a particular senator in the process of trying to stall the Congress’s work on certifying the election, one way to vet that information would be to get toll records, to see if there was actually telephonic contact between those people.”

Smith’s public testimony could shed light and clarify what happened in the investigation and the methods behind it, McCabe said.

“And after you’ve proved that if there’s no contact, then you know not to go down that investigative avenue. If there is contact, then there are, of course, more techniques that you can use to get to the bottom of it,” he added.

“I should also say that it takes a grand jury subpoena to acquire those records. This is not something that a prosecutor or an FBI agent just dreams up off the top of their heads and, you know, calls up the phone company and says, ‘Hey, send us everything you have.’ There is a process. These records are accessed lawfully under the purview of the grand jury. So as I said, I think it was grossly misrepresented in that hearing.”
https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-2674227924/

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