The Department of Justice was obliged to open an internal investigation into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office in June of 2023 because of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, but the investigation went nowhere, and now the House Judiciary Committee is demanding answers.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday sent a letter to Jeffrey Ragsdale, Counsel for the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility expressing concern about OPR’s “refusal to take prompt investigative steps,” and urging him to preserve all records related to its highly suspect “investigation.”
After stonewalling the committee for months, OPR officials finally briefed the committee on the investigation in November, confirming that an employee in Smith’s office had “self-reported” the alleged misconduct, which involved “manipulating evidence seized by the FBI during the raid of Mar-a-Lago,” and an attempt to impose an “unprecedented” and “excessive” prison sentence upon a defendant.
Incredibly, the OPR officials told lawmakers they couldn’t investigate the allegations further because it could “interfere with” and “jeopardize” Smith’s two criminal cases against Donald Trump.
In his letter to Ragsdale, Jordan pointed out that this policy would keep “bad actor attorneys” in place to commit further prosecutorial misconduct.
“This not only defies common sense, but it seems to violate the Department’s mission to ensure that justice is done in every case,” Jordan wrote.
The Ohio congressman further noted that OPR only began investigating the allegations after Smith had announced last month that he was winding down his prosecutions, and had given OPR the go-ahead.
“You stated that Smith only allowed the investigation to begin because it would now no longer interfere with the Special Counsel’s investigation and prosecution,” Jordan wrote. “It is absurd that OPR, the Department entity charged with upholding ethical conduct—would only examine allegations of prosecutorial misconduct after the subject of the allegations has approved the inquiry, the chairman added. “This process does not inspire any confidence that OPR’s examination will be independent and impartial.”
According to Jordan, OPR refused to give lawmakers a timeframe in which it would complete its investigation, and falsely claimed it did not have to release its final report to Congress “because of the Privacy Act.”
“As we explained during the briefing, the Privacy Act has an express exemption for disclosing material to a Committee chairman such that it is not a barrier to you cooperating with the Committee’s oversight,” Jordan wrote in his letter to Ragsdale.
The chairman added that OPR’s failure to cooperate with the Committee’s oversight and “apparent intention to hide information” was “more evidence that OPR operates to protect Department attorneys from independent accountability.”
Jordan reiterated the Committee’s two previous requests and told Ragsdale to preserve all existing and future records pertaining to OPR’s investigation into the prosecutorial misconduct by Smith and his team.
“Your office should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications and other information, including electronic information and metadata that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry,” Jordan wrote.
The chairman asked the office to produce the documents and information no later than 10:00 a.m., Dec. 18.