Jordan Demands DOJ Provide Evidence Regarding Possible Misconduct By Jack Smith

On Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, fired off a letter to the Biden Department of Justice demanding the Office of Professional Responsibility provide critical information about the operations of Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team’s efforts to prosecute Donald Trump.

Smith had charged Trump with trying to subvert the 2020 presidential election in one case and mishandling classified documents in another.

“The information that you have provided only reinforces our concerns that OPR acts more to protect Department prosecutors than to root out prosecutorial misconduct,” Jordan wrote to Jeffrey Ragsdale, the counsel for OPR. “While we appreciate you confirming an open investigation into Jack Smith’s prosecutors, we are concerned that your refusal to take prompt investigative steps will allow these attorneys to evade internal accountability by leaving the Department.”

CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Jordan referred to a letter the Committee wrote in May in which they asked for “documents related to OPR’s investigations into allegations that Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team lied to a federal court, manipulated evidence seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during its raid of Mar-a-Lago, and improperly pressured a lawyer representing a defendant indicted by Smith.”

The Committee followed up with another letter in August regarding professional misconduct regarding another member of Smith’s team, J.P. Cooney. After receiving no response, the Committee asked Ragsdale to make himself available to the Committee in September and followed up with another request in October regarding all their requests.

On November 19, Ragsdale told the Committee that OPR had opened an investigation into Smith’s office in June 2023, but OPR did not conduct an “inquiry” or “investigation” into the allegations because it could “interfer[e] with” and “jeopardize” the prosecution, Jordan wrote.

“As you explained it, the Department’s policy would keep bad-actor attorneys in place to continue prosecutorial misconduct because of the administrative difficulty and resource constraints involved in switching attorneys,” Jordan wrote. “This excuse not only defies common sense, but it seems to violate the Department’s mission to ensure that justice is done in every case.”

After Trump was elected, Smith revealed that his team was “making moves to wind down the two criminal cases.”

“Smith then gave your office permission to investigate the allegations of attorney misconduct by Smith’s office. You stated that Smith only allowed the investigation to begin because it would now no longer ‘interfere with the Special Counsel’s investigation and prosecution,’” Jordan noted.

“It is absurd that OPR – the Department entity charged with upholding ethical conduct – would only examine allegations of prosecutorial misconduct after the subject of the allegations has approved the inquiry,” he declared.

“Your continued failure to cooperate with our oversight and apparent intention to hide information from the Committee is more evidence that OPR operates to protect Department attorneys from independent accountability,” Jordan asserted. “This letter serves as a formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials related to OPR’s investigation into Special Counsel Smith and members of his prosecution team. Your office should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry.”

#BREAKING: DOJ briefed the Committee on prosecutorial misconduct by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team.

Chairman @Jim_Jordan demands the DOJ produce the requested documents and information. pic.twitter.com/FIpwnZVARg

— House Judiciary GOP ???????????????????????? (@JudiciaryGOP) December 5, 2024

In late November, a judge rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request that Smith preserve his records. In his request, Paxton wrote that he “fears that many releasable records … will never see daylight. That is not because DOJ has any legal reason to withhold them. Rather, Attorney General Paxton has a well-founded belief as set forth herein that Defendants will simply destroy the records. That is how they and/or their predecessors have operated in the recent past. And Jack Smith’s team has conducted itself in multiple ways that suggest it cannot be blindly trusted to preserve, and eventually produce, all of its records.”