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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is calling for criminal prosecutions after newly released records alleged that investigators working for former Special Counsel Jack Smith accessed private communications involving members of Congress during the investigation of President Donald Trump.
In an opinion column published by The New York Post, Stefanik argued that officials responsible for obtaining and reviewing lawmakers’ communications should be held accountable.
“Government officials responsible for spying on the private communications of lawmakers must be prosecuted,” Stefanik wrote, calling the alleged actions a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers.
Stefanik said she first believed she had been affected after whistleblowers disclosed last year that Smith’s investigation, known as “Arctic Frost,” had obtained communications involving Republican senators.
She said records released this week by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., confirmed those concerns.
According to Grassley’s office, records released July 14 indicate that Smith’s investigative team accessed text messages involving 44 current and former members of Congress before a Justice Department filter team reviewed the material for potentially privileged communications.
The lawmakers included both Republicans and Democrats serving in the House and Senate.
Grassley alleged that investigators bypassed standard procedures intended to protect privileged communications, including those covered by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley said in a statement.
He also said investigators “ignored their own routine investigative protocols” when reviewing congressional communications and pledged to seek testimony from Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Stefanik said the records support Republican claims that the investigations involving Trump extended beyond the former president.
“As President Trump has always said, the illegal weaponization of judicial power that has plagued him for the last decade was never just about him,” she wrote. “It was directed against all his supporters, and anyone who spoke out against these abuses.”
