Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley dencounced the former prosecutor of President Trump for an "abuse of authority."
Page A212From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 14 October 2026
THE DRAGNET
Jack Smith couldn't recall surveilling Republicans; the file recalls 639,000 of them, down to the hat.
As it ran on the front
Six days later the word got a witness. Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice indicted Donald Trump, sat for his first live testimony before the committee and defended, on the record, secretly obtaining Republican lawmakers' phone records. Asked whether his subpoenas had also sought those lawmakers' physical locations, he could not say. Asked about the scope of his demands for conservative fundraising information, he could not recall. The New York Post's headline for the day was "corrupt."
Two days later, on October 1, Senator Bill Hagerty filed a bar complaint. Smith, he wrote, is "a blatantly partisan actor" whose "prosecutorial misconduct damaged our constitutional order." A law license was now, formally, a question pending before a bar association — one more document in a file that, as of October 1, still ran on adjectives.…
…(cont) Then, on October 14, the file got a number. Newly reviewed federal whistleblower disclosures, reported by the New York Post and The Federalist, show that Smith's investigators pulled personal information on at least 639,000 Republican voters and donors. Not a list. A file granular enough — all together now — to flag who gave money, and who bought a red MAGA hat. Told of the figure, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley called it, per the Post, an "abuse of authority." He is not wrong about the authority. He is three weeks late on the recall.
Because that is the shape of the record now: a witness who, under oath, could not describe the outer edge of what his office had demanded, and a disclosure, arriving after he left the stand, that measures the edge at 639,000 names. The hearing asked him to describe the dragnet. The disclosure answered, in a drawer the hearing never opened, itemizing the merchandise.
What the bar complaint asks for is a license. What the disclosure leaves on the table is a question Smith has not answered under oath: not whether the file had the hat size, but who signed off on asking for it.
“You don't need to pick a side in this one to feel it — a prosecutor's office built a file on 639,000 private citizens' giving and their shopping, and the guy who ran it looks at a Senate committee and says he can't remember. That's not a memory problem, that's the file working exactly as designed: big enough to be useful, vague enough to be deniable. Doesn't matter whose name is on the hat — your name's in a file like that somewhere too, it's just not your turn yet.”
“""”
The receipts
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith seized the personal information of at least 639,000 Republican voters, donors, and supporters as part of his Arctic Frost lawfare against Donald Trump, according to newly reviewed federal whistleblower disclosures. “This update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly…
· Jack Smith faces Senate grilling as Republicans press for criminal charges against him from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· WATCH LIVE: Jack Smith testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Jack Smith dodges questions about spying on Republican lawmakers from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Ex-special counsel Jack Smith accused of ‘corrupt’ probe of Trump and Republican lawmakers from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Sen. Hagerty Files Bar Complaint Against Jack Smith Over Arctic Frost Lawfare from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
· Jack Smith Violated Constitution To Spy On Republicans In Lawless ‘Arctic Frost’ Investigation, Committee Alleges from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.