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EXCERPT:
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office analyzed the text messages of some 40-plus Members of Congress, with newly released internal documents indicating that the lead investigators ignored the established filter team review process — a process instituted to protect attorney-client privileged communications. Those documents, released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, following whistleblowers tips, prove even more damning, though, to the special counsel’s brazen disregard of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
On Monday, Sen. Grassley made public a letter and records he obtained jointly with his colleague, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., as part of their oversight of the weaponization of the DOJ and FBI under the Biden Administration. That cover letter from the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs explained to the senators that Special Counsel Smith’s team had established a filter team intended to protect privileged communications obtained during the investigators’ targeting of Donald Trump.
While the filter team protocols provided that “[n]o materials shall be disclosed to the investigative team without approval of a filter team attorney,” the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs explained that documents uncovered based on whistleblower disclosures revealed that the special counsel’s office “apparently bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages.” The “text messages” referenced were “text messages between White House personnel and several Senators and Representatives,” namely 44 different Members of Congress.