Jack Smiths snooping through texts between congressmen may have violated the Constitutions most important principles

Was Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of President Trump a “runaway train with no brakes”?That’s the phrase used by Sen.Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) as he revealed that Smith obtained text messages to and from 44 lawmakers — including some Democrats — as part of his prosecution of the president.

The National Archives turned over the texts to Smith in August 2023.The nonagenarian Mr.

Grassley declares that Mr.Smith “ran roughshod over the Constitution.”Violating America’s charter is the accusation that Smith levied at Trump, whom he charged with an obscure crime called “conspiracy against rights.” That civil-rights statute was first passed in the 1870s to combat the Klu Klux Klan. Smith argued Trump’s shenanigans in the wake of the 2020 election amounted to an effort to deprive Americans of their right to vote.Smith was similarly reliant on a hoary statute from another age in his prosecution of Trump for the retention of classified documents.

The former war-crimes prosecutor at the Hague alleged dozens of violations of the 1917 Espionage Act.That’s the same statute that sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair as Soviet spies.We’ll never know if Smith could have stuck the landing on any of those exotic charges — if he had, Trump would be in the big house rather than the White House.

Smith still claims he would have convicted Trump “but for” the election. Now, though, it is the prosecutor who is feeling the heat.His sprawling investigation into January 6 — code-named “Operation Arctic Frost” after a satsuma mandarin hybrid of a distinctly orange hue — swept up the comprehensive telephone metadata of 14 GOP members of Congress.

A trove of text messages from dozens of other lawmakers was also included.The rub, though, is that the Constitution gives ironclad protection to lawmakers — the Framers had seen all they needed to see about what happens when executive power runs amok.The Speech or Debate Clause...