Former US Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team reviewed text messages from 44 Republican and Democratic members of Congress during his investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to two Republican senators.

Investigation Details

The records came from subpoenas to the National Archives and Records Administration for text messages from government phones used by Trump and a range of his top officials and advisers from October 2020 until the end of his first term in January 2021.

The records Smith’s team obtained included text messages that 40 Republican lawmakers and four Democrats exchanged with Trump officials, according to Republican Senators Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Ron Johnson, the chair of a Senate investigative panel.

The new material underscores how many senior figures in the US government were examined as Smith investigated Trump’s attempts to reverse his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort during Biden’s administration.

Response from Senators

Grassley released the material the day before Todd Blanche, who defended Trump against both of Smith’s cases, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to serve as attorney general.

Justice Department officials under Trump have provided Grassley with a range of records as the president’s allies press claims that Smith’s investigations were improperly aimed at damaging Trump’s political prospects and swept up sensitive information irrelevant to those cases.

‘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,’ Grassley said in a statement.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.