Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released internal Justice Department messages this week showing that personnel in Jack Smith's Special Counsel Office may have committed the very kind of classified-information security failures they were prosecuting Donald Trump for. The documents describe a DOJ sensitive compartmented information facility left unsecured overnight, unauthorized access to classified material, and an internal exchange in which staffers acknowledged the lapse as a "violation and incident."
Grassley sent the documents alongside a formal letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche demanding answers: Did the DOJ investigate? Were any classified materials compromised, missing, altered, or tampered with? And was Trump's legal team ever told?
The allegations land with particular force because the Special Counsel Office secured a 40-count felony indictment against then-former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, the same category of conduct Grassley now says Smith's own people engaged in. As Just the News reported, the Iowa Republican framed the revelations as evidence of a glaring double standard at the Biden-era DOJ.
The released documents include internal messages between unidentified DOJ and SCO team members. One wrote plainly about the SCIF: "No one opened it yesterday because no one closed it the day before." A second staffer responded: "Who opened it the day before? That's a violation and incident so I need to know the details."
Those are not ambiguous words. A SCIF, a sensitive compartmented information facility, exists for one purpose: to keep the nation's most closely held secrets physically secure. Leaving one open overnight is not a clerical oversight. It is exactly the kind of failure that triggers formal security investigations in every corner of the federal government.
The Washington Examiner reported that the SCIF incident occurred in April 2024, just months before Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the entire case against Trump in July 2024, ruling that Smith's appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Examiner also noted that an individual in Smith's office was granted access to classified material without confirmed "need to know" authorization, and that there was uncertainty over whether classified documents stored in the SCIF had been moved without proper accounting.
A DOJ spokesperson told the Examiner: "Every official entrusted with sensitive materials must follow strict security protocols without exception, a standard Jack Smith's team apparently failed to meet as they pursued a politically weaponized prosecution of President Trump."
In his letter to Blanche, Grassley did not hold back. He wrote that the messages "raise serious concerns about the Biden administration's failure to properly secure classified materials." He added:
"This conduct appears to show the Biden Justice Department may have mishandled classified information while it prosecuted President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified information."
Grassley also called the episode "yet another example of law enforcement's double standards in the previous administration."
His letter poses several specific demands. He wants records showing whether DOJ conducted any internal investigation of the security incident. He wants to know whether any materials were compromised. And he wants to know whether Trump's defense attorneys, who were fighting a 40-count indictment built on the premise that mishandling classified documents is a serious federal crime, were ever informed that the prosecutors pursuing that case had their own security failures.
That last question matters. If the government's own handling of classified evidence was compromised during the prosecution, it could have had direct implications for the integrity of the case and any materials presented to the grand jury or produced in discovery. As of publication, the DOJ had not publicly responded to Grassley's letter.
The classified-material allegations are only the latest in a growing pile of disclosures about the conduct of Smith's office. Fox News reported that documents released by Grassley also revealed private meetings between Smith's team and two federal judges, Beryl Howell and James Boasberg, both Obama appointees, during the Trump investigations. Briefing notes indicated Judge Howell "loved the idea" of Smith's omnibus executive privilege litigation strategy before ruling on it, fueling Republican accusations of improper coordination between prosecutors and the bench.
The scope of Smith's operation extended well beyond the classified-documents case. His "Arctic Frost" investigation issued nearly 200 subpoenas targeting more than 400 Republican entities and individuals, as National Review detailed. Verizon complied with subpoenas for phone records of at least nine Republican lawmakers, while AT&T refused. Judge Boasberg signed non-disclosure orders that prevented the targeted senators from even knowing their records were being sought.
Senator Ted Cruz, who chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter titled "Arctic Frost: A Modern Watergate," called Smith "a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor" and said the operation amounted to "a political enemies list from the beginning."
Breitbart reported that FBI Director Kash Patel uncovered hidden "lockbox" files showing Smith's team tracked communications of sitting Republican lawmakers in 2023, leading to the dismissal of the agents involved. The 197 subpoenas went to 34 individuals and 163 entities, sweeping up information on donors, organizations, and officials across the Republican apparatus.
Step back and consider what the public record now shows. The Biden administration appointed a special counsel to prosecute a former president for keeping classified documents at his Florida residence. That special counsel's office then, if Grassley's documents are accurate, left a SCIF open overnight, gave someone access to classified material without proper authorization, and may have moved classified documents without proper accounting.
The former president faced 40 felony counts. The prosecutors, so far, face questions from a Senate chairman.
This is not the only instance of the legal machinery aimed at Trump boomeranging on those who operated it. A former DOJ attorney has been indicted on felony charges connected to the Jack Smith investigation itself, accused of stealing sealed documents.
The broader pattern of Trump's accusers facing their own legal and credibility problems continues to grow. The DOJ has separately opened a criminal perjury investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll.
And the theme of government agencies being forced to answer for weaponized conduct against Trump extends beyond the DOJ. The IRS issued a formal apology and agreed to a $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund to settle Trump's lawsuit over politically motivated audits.
Grassley's documents raise as many questions as they answer. The specific date of the SCIF incident, beyond the April 2024 timeframe reported by the Washington Examiner, remains unclear. The names of the individuals involved in the internal messages have not been disclosed. Whether the DOJ conducted any internal review of the breach is unknown. Whether classified materials were actually compromised is unknown. Whether Trump's defense team was notified is unknown.
These are not academic questions. If the government failed to disclose a security breach involving evidence central to a 40-count felony prosecution, that failure could carry its own legal consequences, or at minimum, it would confirm that the Biden DOJ operated under rules it expected only its targets to follow.
The politicization of federal law enforcement under the previous administration has been a recurring subject of scrutiny, and the latest revelations only deepen the case that the institutions entrusted with equal justice used that trust selectively.
Grassley is right to press for answers. The American public deserves to know whether the people who built a felony case around classified-document security could be bothered to lock their own door.
