Congress

How Jack Smith connected the dots between GOP lawmakers, Trump aides in 2020 election probe

Published

7 months ago

March 24, 2026

Former special counsel Jack Smith’s office sought to map a vast web of contacts between President Donald Trump’s most vocal Republican allies in Congress and key players in his bid to subvert the results of the 2020 election, according to newly released records of the Smith-led investigation.

Emails from January 2023 circulated among Smith’s deputies show how top GOP lawmakers communicated directly with individuals later identified by Smith as Trump’s co-conspirators in his election interference plot, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.

Those contacts became the Smith office’s justification for pursuing subpoenas of phone logs for more than a dozen Republican officials. That includes former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who were previously known to be of interest to Smith’s investigators — as well as then-Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who is now Trump’s head of the EPA and is among other lawmakers not previously known to be under Smith’s microscope.

A spokesperson for Zeldin did not immediately provide a response to a request for comment.

These Republicans and others are featured in the materials released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, who has been leading a probe into Smith’s work. The Iowa Republican made the documents public to help support the party’s widely held position that Smith was politically motivated in his pursuit of criminal charges against Trump during the Biden administration — for efforts to overturn the election and his mishandling of classified documents.

“They were not aiming low. They were trying to take out everyone on the other side,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose data Smith’s office sought to obtain via subpoena, said Tuesday.

Cruz delivered the remarks while presiding over a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing comparing Smith’s investigations into Trump to the Watergate scandal that took down former President Richard Nixon and led to new rules cracking down on government corruption.

But the newly public documents also offer a more expansive picture of who Smith’s team believed might have had information that could bolster their probe into the campaign to undermine the 2020 election results that culminated in a deadly riot.

The special counsel’s office found that Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) had communicated with Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who is now director of the CIA. A spokesperson for Ratcliffe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zeldin corresponded with Meadows and Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who was a close Trump ally in the effort. Cruz had calls with Meadows, Eastman and Ratcliffe and was one of several senators who received a call from Giuliani on Jan. 6.

Those contacts explain Smith’s interest in obtaining subpoenas for the phone logs for a dozen current and former Republican members of Congress, which his team said would be used to “establish logical evidentiary inferences regarding Trump and his surrogates’ actions and intent.”

The list of potential subpoena targets also includes Arizona Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. Spokespeople for Biggs, Gosar and Perry did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to the documents, Smith’s team methodically reviewed information provided in a report produced by the Democratic-led House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks, suggesting a nexus between the two parallel inquiries.

New documents released by Grassley Tuesday also revealed the scale and scope of Smith’s scrutiny of Kash Patel, a longtime Trump ally who now serves as FBI director. Patel was previously established to have been a target of the special counsel’s investigation, but it was not known that Smith sought to obtain Patel’s phone and text message logs spanning two years.

A spokesperson for national FBI headquarters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The materials also provide new details about the backchanneling between former Vice President Mike Pence and Smith’s team regarding Pence’s grand jury testimony, and the efforts investigators took to screen out privileged information before they accessed devices they seized from targets of their probe.

At the Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Democrats continued to defend Smith’s work and urged Republicans to schedule a public hearing with the former special counsel.

“Apparently when the Trump DOJ does it, it’s nothing new; when Jack Smith does it, it’s a modern Watergate,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights. “With Patel, it’s obvious why Jack Smith was looking at him.”

Grassley has said Smith will receive an invitation to address the full Judiciary panel in the coming months, following testimony the attorney gave to the House Judiciary Committee late last year.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

Congress

Ralph Norman under pressure from fellow South Carolina Republicans to campaign for Darline Graham

Published

3 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Russell Fry says fellow South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman should be doing more to help GOP Sen. Darline Graham win election to a full term in the Senate.

“As somebody who carried the conservative banner as long as he has, he should step into the arena,” Fry told reporters at a Monday campaign event in Myrtle Beach. “He didn’t win. I didn’t win either.”

Fry and Norman both competed against Graham in the Republican primary to be on the November ballot. Norman advanced to a runoff with Graham, who was appointed by Gov. Henry McMaster to fill out the remainder her late brother’s term and ultimately endorsed by President Donald Trump.

Now Graham is locked in a closer-than-expected race against Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, prompting national Republicans to flock to defend what is typically considered a safely red seat. Norman, who enjoys deep popularity among conservatives, said he plans to vote for Graham but not campaign with her.

Fry, appearing at an event Monday alongside House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), described Andrews as “a far more dangerous result for the future of this country” and urged Norman to be “more vocal” in the last week before the midterms.

“I hope that he does, in the final eight days, step into the sunlight a little bit and help his Republican nominee,” Fry said.

Trump is expected to hold a rally in Norman’s district Thursday. A spokesperson for Norman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

House Republicans set leadership elections

Published

5 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans will choose their leaders for the upcoming Congress on Nov. 10, one week after Election Day, according to a schedule obtained by Blue Light News.

A two-hour candidate forum is scheduled for that morning, with the afternoon reserved for the elections of a leader, whip, conference chair and other junior positions. If Republicans can hold on to their narrow majority, members will also nominate a speaker ahead of the Jan. 3 floor vote.

Members have until noon Nov. 6 to declare their candidacy for a leadership post, according to the schedule.

A forum and session on the GOP conference rules will follow on Nov. 11, with elections on those rules and the makeup of the conference steering committee to follow on the morning of Nov. 12. All of the events are scheduled to take place in the Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium.

Congress

Gallego plans final midterm travel around Latino enclaves

Published

7 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego has been banging the drum for Democrats to pay attention to the disenfranchised, working-class moderate Latino voters that helped push him to a statewide win in 2024 — the same bloc that helped boost President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Gallego has carved a lane as one of the party’s loudest voices on the future of the Latino coalition. He hasn’t shied away from carrying that message everywhere — and it’s one that could serve his admitted 2028 ambitions well.

Now Gallego’s kicking off a final push across several key gubernatorial and House battlegrounds, according to details shared exclusively with Blue Light News. And he’s tracing a map of where Latino voters could be most critical for Democrats’ path back to power.

“They’ve been left behind in the past by Democrats,” Gallego said in an interview. “Now they feel they’re left behind by Donald Trump.”

Gallego is heading to Las Vegas on Monday to campaign with Democrat Aaron Ford, one of the party’s top targets to flip a governor’s seat. Nevada’s a state where Latinos make up nearly 1 in 5 voters, with working-class roots and the major influence of groups like the Culinary Union — not to mention a key presidential swing state and an early one on the Democratic nominating calendar.

Gallego’s planning a canvass launch with the Culinary Union, a hit on Spanish radio and a roundtable with Latino veterans. On Tuesday, Gallego will be in Reno alongside Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who’s looking to beat Republican David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd.

On Wednesday, the senator plans to travel to San Antonio to support Katy Padilla Stout in Texas’ vacant 23rd District, the red rural seat formerly occupied by GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, and then to El Paso for his second appearance this cycle with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa.

Rounding out the critical Latino voter races, Gallego’s final stop Thursday will be in Miami, stumping for Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, who’s taking on GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.

Gallego wants to build on the momentum from last year’s Miami mayor’s race, which he said showed Democrats could regain ground with Latinos, along with Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial contests. “There was just this knee-jerk reaction that somehow the Latinos were responsible for 2024, and therefore we shouldn’t reward them with any type of investment,” Gallego said. But after those race results came in, “people finally realized like, ‘Oh God, there is something there.’”

Is this a kickstarter for Gallego’s own future?

The senator dodged on whether his final midterms swing is laying the groundwork for a 2028 bid. “We’re only focused on 2026,” he said. But he’s touting the more than half a million dollars he’s put behind Democratic candidates and committees, and Gallego’s visits will directly follow Trump’s rally in south Texas tomorrow and his planned trip to Florida later this week.