Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released internal Department of Justice messages Wednesday showing that personnel in Jack Smith's special counsel office committed the same kind of classified-material security failures they were prosecuting Donald Trump for, including leaving a sensitive compartmented information facility unsecured overnight and granting access to classified documents without proper authorization.
The Iowa Republican sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche demanding answers about whether the DOJ ever investigated the lapses, whether any classified evidence was compromised, and whether Trump's legal team was ever told.
The documents land years after the underlying case collapsed. But their contents raise a question that should have been asked much sooner: How did the same prosecutors who sought 40 felony counts against a former president for alleged mishandling of classified records manage to mishandle classified records themselves?
The messages, published by Grassley alongside his letter, include exchanges among DOJ and special counsel office personnel flagging multiple security breakdowns. In one exchange, an unidentified team member wrote:
"No one opened it yesterday because no one closed it the day before."
A colleague responded bluntly:
"Who opened it the day before? That's a violation and incident so I need to know the details."
The "it" in question was a DOJ SCIF, a facility designed to store and review the nation's most sensitive secrets. Grassley's letter states the facility was accessible to special counsel personnel and was left open overnight "and potentially longer."
That was not the only lapse. DOJ officials also raised concerns that some individuals received access to classified materials without the required "need to know" authorization, a foundational safeguard in the handling of national security information.
The New York Post reported that the internal messages pinpoint specific dates: a classified letter was left out on October 15, 16, 2023, and a SCIF was left open on April 19, 2024, with an assistant to Smith apparently responsible for the security lapse. A separate exchange reflected uncertainty over whether classified materials stored in a DOJ SCIF had been moved without proper accounting, as Newsmax detailed.
In his letter, Grassley did not mince words. He wrote that the messages "raise serious concerns about the Biden administration's failure to properly secure classified materials" and described the pattern as "yet another example of law enforcement's double standards in the previous administration."
He went further in a separate statement, drawing a direct comparison to the treatment of other Democratic figures. Grassley said:
"Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. According to these messages, Biden DOJ personnel may have committed the very offense for which Jack Smith was prosecuting President Trump."
He added: "While Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden escaped accountability for mishandling highly classified information, Jack Smith and the Biden DOJ set out to paint President Trump as a felon and ruin him politically."
The chairman's letter to Blanche posed three specific demands: whether the DOJ probed the security incident internally, whether any classified materials were "compromised, missing, altered, or tampered with," and whether Trump's legal team was ever made aware of the breach. As of the letter's release, no DOJ response had been disclosed.
The broader pattern of alleged misconduct inside Smith's operation has been a growing focus for congressional Republicans.
Jack Smith was appointed special counsel during the Biden administration and secured a grand jury indictment against Trump for 40 felony counts related to alleged mishandling of classified documents. The case was the most aggressive federal prosecution of a former president in American history, and it fell apart.
In July 2024, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, ruling that Smith's appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Smith's separate election-related case against Trump was also dropped after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, consistent with longstanding DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president.
Smith later testified before the House Judiciary Committee in a closed-door session in December 2025. He told lawmakers his team had developed "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that Trump criminally conspired to overturn the 2020 election results and said there was "powerful evidence" Trump illegally hoarded classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, AP News reported. Smith maintained he "made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election."
But those assurances ring hollow against the backdrop of what Grassley's documents now reveal. A prosecutor who claims to have followed the rules to the letter led an office that could not keep a SCIF door closed.
The classified-material lapses are not the only controversy dogging Smith's legacy. Separate disclosures have revealed that his "Arctic Frost" investigation issued 197 subpoenas to 34 individuals and 163 entities, sweeping up information on more than 400 people and organizations connected to the Republican Party. FBI files uncovered by Director Kash Patel showed Smith's team tracked communications of sitting lawmakers in 2023, leading to the firing of involved FBI agents.
That dragnet extended to phone records. Verizon complied with Smith's subpoena for records belonging to Republican senators, while AT&T refused and Smith did not pursue the matter further, National Review reported. Senator Ted Cruz called Smith "a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor" and said the operation amounted to "a political enemies list from the beginning."
Meanwhile, the broader reckoning with Biden-era legal weaponization continues. A former DOJ attorney has been indicted for allegedly stealing sealed documents tied to the Smith probe, another sign that the special counsel's operation was plagued by far more than policy disagreements.
Grassley's documents raise as many questions as they answer. The exact date of the overnight SCIF breach is not fully established in the public record. The identities of the team members whose messages were released remain redacted. And it is unknown whether any classified materials were actually compromised, or whether anyone faced internal discipline.
Most pointedly, Grassley asked whether Trump's defense attorneys were ever informed that the prosecutors building a case against him for mishandling classified documents had themselves failed to secure classified documents. If the answer is no, the implications for prosecutorial conduct are serious.
The DOJ under the current administration has moved to address the institutional damage left by its predecessor. Trump's settlement with the IRS, which included a formal apology and a $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund, signaled a broader effort to hold federal agencies accountable for politically motivated conduct.
But accountability requires more than settlements and firings. It requires answers. And so far, the DOJ has not provided them.
Democrats, for their part, have shown little appetite for self-examination. Their focus has shifted to expanding the Supreme Court and other structural power plays rather than reckoning with the conduct of the prosecutors they championed.
The classified documents case against Trump was never just a legal proceeding. It was a political event, covered as such, celebrated as such, and ultimately dismissed as such. The 40-count indictment was treated by much of the media and the Democratic establishment as proof of guilt before a single day of trial.
Now we learn that the office behind that indictment could not keep its own classified facility locked. That its personnel accessed sensitive materials without proper clearance. That internal messages flagged the failures in real time, and, as far as the public record shows, nothing happened.
Grassley is right to press for answers. The DOJ owes them, not just to Congress, but to every American who was told this prosecution was about the rule of law.
If the rule of law only applies in one direction, it isn't the rule of law. It's the rule of convenience.
