New documents released by Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, show that employees at the Department of Justice, including those working for then-special counsel Jack Smith, may have mishandled classified information while probing Donald Trump for allegedly doing the same. 

“Messages involving personnel in Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Office (SCO) raise serious concerns about the Biden administration’s failure to properly secure classified materials,” Grassley wrote in a short letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday. 

Smith, who was appointed special counsel during the Biden administration, pursued a federal investigation against then-candidate Donald Trump into alleged mishandling of classified documents. The special counsel later secured a grand jury indictment against the then-former president for 40 felony counts. 

The case was dismissed in July 2024 by Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled Smith’s appointment violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

In the letter, Grassley requested more information and records from the Justice Department about whether the agency probed the security incident, whether any of the classified materials were “compromised, missing, altered, or tampered with,” and whether Trump’s legal team was made aware of the incident. 

“The messages show that these failures caused a security ‘violation and incident’ where a Justice Department sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) accessible to SCO personnel was left open overnight and potentially longer,” Grassley wrote. 

You can read the letter below: 

The documents published by the senator show that Justice Department officials raised concerns that some individuals received access to classified materials without the required “need to know” authorization. 

They also show that a secure facility used by the special counsel’s staff was left open overnight.

“No one opened it yesterday because no one closed it the day before,” one team member wrote. 

“Who opened it the day before? That’s a violation and incident so I need to know the details,” another replied. 

“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 wrote. “This is yet another example of law enforcement’s double standards in the previous administration.”

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