Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has admitted that Republicans may have found a real problem. Washington remains standing, the sun rose on schedule, and no trumpet has sounded from the heavens, but the moment still feels unusual.
Blumenthal said Republicans are “rightly concerned” about a possible breach of Justice Department norms and improper access to communications gathered during former special counsel Jack Smith's investigation of President Donald Trump. From Fox News:
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital his Republican colleagues are right to be troubled that the Justice Department spied on lawmakers to aid former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
"I think we need to have more facts. Look into it. Republicans are rightly concerned about the possible breach of norms and improper access to email," Blumenthal told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
The GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee released a trove of documents Tuesday showing that Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump included the Department of Justice collecting text messages between 44 members of Congress, among them Republicans and Democrats, and White House staff.
He called for more facts and an investigation, while several other Democrats preferred silence.
The underlying records explain Blumenthal's caution. Smith's team obtained text messages exchanged between White House personnel and 44 lawmakers, including 40 Republicans and four Democrats. From the Senate Judiciary Committee:
The Justice Department’s letter to the chairmen and the provided records indicate Smith’s investigative team circumvented its own filter review process, which was established to protect privileged materials from being swept up in a criminal prosecution, and directly accessed the content of texts sent by Republican and Democrat senators and members of the House of Representatives to White House officials during Trump’s first term. Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Bypassing a Filter Team evades consideration of additional privileges, such as attorney-client privilege.
Both Grassley and Johnson’s text messages were obtained by Smith’s team.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes. Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, 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’s investigation,” Grassley said. “I 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’s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings. Jack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable.”
“This is yet another grotesque example of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department,” Johnson said. “Jack Smith’s team acted with impunity as they disregarded their own protocols to obtain and access White House text messages, including messages to and from 44 Members of Congress. At this point, no one should be shocked by Jack Smith’s recklessness and blatant abuse of power, but they should be outraged.”
The government collected the messages from archived White House devices, rather than directly seizing every lawmaker's phone, but prosecutors still opened communications involving members of Congress.
A Justice Department letter says a filter team was created to screen records for protected material before investigators could review them. The software permissions were improperly configured.
After the National Archives sent 54 spreadsheets on Aug. 21, 2023, a senior prosecutor downloaded them within 26 minutes, shared them with investigators, and began circulating individual texts less than an hour after delivery. The department concluded that Smith's investigative team “apparently bypassed” the filter process.
The concern goes beyond embarrassing texts or partisan curiosity. Justice Department lawyers had already warned Smith's team that congressional communications could raise constitutional issues under the Speech or Debate Clause.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has every reason to ask who saw the messages, why safeguards failed, and whether protected legislative work entered a criminal investigation.
Blumenthal's response became more striking beside his colleagues' reactions. Sen. Cory “Sparticus” Booker (D-N.J.), whose messages were among those collected, offered no comment. Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also declined to discuss the records. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he hadn't closely followed the dispute.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) hasn't been the only Democrat to side with Republicans during Trump's second term. Twelve Senate Democrats and 46 House Democrats backed the Laken Riley Act in January 2025, although Blumenthal voted against it.
Those were public policy votes shaped by pressure from voters. Acknowledging possible misconduct inside a Biden Justice Department investigation carries a different political cost.
Blumenthal validated Republican concerns about an investigation aimed at Trump, the subject on which his party has treated skepticism as disloyalty. One cautious sentence disturbed a comfortable partisan arrangement.
His background may explain the brief outbreak of judgment. Blumenthal served as U.S. attorney for Connecticut and spent 20 years as the state's attorney general before entering the Senate. He knows why prosecutors separate investigators from potentially privileged evidence.
I would love to blindly state that I think Blumenthal's actions were completely above board, 100% altruistic. But I can't give you that. I'd probably argue the broken clock adage. Who knows what Blumenthal is thinking?
He also knows a failed safeguard can't be waved away because the target was Trump.
The apocalypse can wait; Blumenthal hasn't joined the “normal” Democratic Party, condemned Smith, or even endorsed a Republican candidate. He merely admitted the evidence raises legitimate questions, which counts as an event in modern Washington.
Common sense appeared for a moment, and Blumenthal stated the obvious. Democrats now face a question they can't bury forever: if the same conduct had occurred under Trump and swept up Democratic lawmakers, would any of them accept silence?
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