Prosecutors with the office of former special counsel Jack Smith left classified materials unsecured and provided materials to at least one person without confirming that person needed to see them, a senator said on July 8.
A set of messages from Smith’s team showed that in 2024, the team left a facility designated for the review of sensitive information open overnight, and potentially longer.
“Who opened the [facility] yesterday?” one member of the team asked in a message. “No one opened it yesterday because no one closed it the day before,” another member replied.
A second set of messages from 2024 outlined how the team provided classified materials to an unidentified person despite not having confirmation that the person needed to see the materials.
The incidents took place as Smith’s team, which was part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was prosecuting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified materials during his first term as president.
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Grassley said in a statement. “According to these messages, Biden DOJ personnel may have committed the very offense for which Jack Smith was prosecuting President Trump. These records expose yet another double standard of justice.”
Grassley also wrote on X that the messages “indicate hypocritical [and] careless behavior” and “merit further investigation.”
He pointed to how some former officials, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mishandled classified information but were not charged.
Grassley asked Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, for more records, including whether the facility that was left unlocked contained any material that was part of Smith’s prosecution of Trump, and whether the DOJ investigated Smith’s team for giving classified information without the need-to-know confirmation.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
Smith, who has said his investigation was proper, was appointed in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to manage investigations into Trump, who at the time was out of office.
Federal prosecutors later charged Trump with violations of federal law governing the handling of classified information, as well as other charges such as illegally interfering in the 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors dropped the cases after Trump won the 2024 election, noting that he would soon be president.
