Documents Reveal Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Interactions with Federal Judges During Trump Investigations

Conservative critics have launched fresh allegations against former special counsel Jack Smith following Senator Chuck Grassley’s release of documents showing communications between Smith’s team and two federal judges during investigations into former President Donald Trump.

The documents, released Tuesday, detail briefing notes from a January 13, 2023 meeting where Smith’s team updated Attorney General Merrick Garland shortly after Smith’s appointment as special counsel. The notes reference meetings with Judges Beryl Howell and James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., both Obama appointees who have issued high-profile rulings against Trump.

“Democrat DC U.S. district judges illegally worked in secret with Biden Special Counsel Jack Smith to bring charges against President Trump,” claimed Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, in a social media post as the documents came to light.

Smith’s investigations ultimately led to criminal charges against Trump related to the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents. Throughout the process, Trump consistently denounced the investigations as a “witch hunt,” while Republican lawmakers condemned the charges as politically motivated attempts to derail his presidential campaign.

According to the briefing notes, Judge Howell reportedly approved of Smith’s team’s strategy regarding executive privilege litigation. “She liked our approach of pursuing the executive privilege litigation in an omnibus fashion,” Smith’s team wrote, referring to Howell’s apparent endorsement of consolidated court filings rather than individual motions. The notes also mentioned a planned meeting with Judge Boasberg scheduled for March 18, 2023, the day after he was set to succeed Howell as chief judge.

The White House responded forcefully to the revelations. “We have long known that Judge Boasberg is a far-left judicial activist trying to undermine the President’s lawful authority, this is just further proof,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who led a Senate hearing on the Trump cases on Tuesday, characterized Smith’s work as a “modern Watergate” scandal that he claimed was politically motivated and overly expansive, collecting personal information from hundreds of Republican entities and individuals.

Legal experts have offered mixed interpretations of the documents. Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who has represented January 6 defendants, noted that many aspects of the memo were routine, as it was designed to update Garland following Smith’s appointment. He pointed out that as chief judges, Howell and Boasberg would necessarily be involved in grand jury matters.

However, Shipley expressed concern about “the suggestion — which was borne out by events that followed — that Judge Howell desired to resolve all the issues involving witness privilege before she stepped down as Chief Judge,” though he acknowledged her decisions were subject to appeal.

The briefing notes also detailed Smith team’s interactions with the FBI, stating the bureau “has been very responsive.” The documents referenced “precedent-setting issues” in areas of executive privilege and Speech or Debate, suggesting Smith was testing separation of powers boundaries by seeking potentially privileged materials from Trump’s circle.

Independent journalist Julie Kelly, a vocal critic of the Biden Justice Department, suggested the judges were “in cahoots with Biden DOJ to rubber stamp, even advise, any strategy set forth by Jack Smith.”

Throughout congressional testimony, Smith has consistently defended his work as nonpartisan and in accordance with Department of Justice policies.

Neither Smith’s representatives nor the chambers of Judges Howell and Boasberg responded to requests for comment on the document release.

The controversy adds another dimension to the ongoing political and legal battles surrounding the investigations into the former president, with Republicans increasingly questioning the independence of the judicial process in the Trump cases.