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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. We have had quite a feisty afternoon here on the floor, and I am so pleased that my colleagues have called out some of the actions that we have witnessed from the other side.

It is beyond me that they would want illegal aliens to vote in U.S. elections--beyond me. But maybe they don't want to preserve ``one person, one vote.'' Maybe that is not important to them. It is important to 80 percent of the American people.

And, you know, they are not wanting to fund DHS, and they are saying: Oh, it is over ICE. ICE is funded. Their money is going to continue. But what they are doing, they are defunding FEMA. They are defunding TSA. So if your flights don't go next week, blame the Democrats.

And this week we had a hearing in Judiciary Committee that looked at another inappropriate use of the Federal Government's inappropriate policies. And this week I chaired the first in a series of hearings at Judiciary Committee that will address Arctic Frost and the Arctic Frost investigation that targeted President Trump, elected Members of Congress, including me, and hundreds--hundreds--of conservative groups and individuals.

Now, the subcommittee I chair is on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. And we called before us the general counsels--legal representatives from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile--the three wireless carriers that received unlawful subpoena requests from Jack Smith to access our phone records.

Now, what we know--because of whistleblowers--these are people that work over at DOJ. They are whistleblowers. They saw what was happening, and they said: This is wrong.

So we know what Mr. Smith was up to. What he and Merrick Garland and Joe Biden did was to weaponize the U.S. Federal Government to target President Donald Trump and his allies.

Just days after President Trump announced his 2024 campaign, President Biden named Jack Smith as special counsel. And with the approval of the Biden Justice Department, he issued 197 subpoenas to over 430 conservative organizations and individuals. Among them were more than a dozen sitting Members of Congress, including me and my Judiciary Committee colleagues Senators Graham, Lee, Cruz, and Hawley.

Now, the question would be: What does this set of individuals have in common? What we know is this: We are all Republicans; we all support President Trump; and each of us had valid questions about the 2020 election.

So here is Jack Smith, who was probably inappropriately appointed as special counsel. We never took a vote. He didn't have a statute that allowed him to be the special counsel. But he goes to great lengths to make certain that we could never find out about this deep invasion of our privacy and the violation of our constitutional rights. So he went to an Obama appointee, Judge James Boasberg, who signed nondisclosure orders--or you may call them a gag order. They did this to ensure that the subpoenas were going to be kept secret from us.

Now, the basis for the gag orders was this: that notifying the Members of Congress being spied on could possibly result in destruction of evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, serious jeopardy to the investigation. I am reading that from the gag order. Imagine that.

We also know that Jack Smith's corrupt team of prosecutors consulted with the Biden DOJ Public Integrity Section about the subpoenas. They were informed--get this: The Public Integrity Section actually informed Jack Smith and his group that there was litigation risk for doing this. Oh, my goodness. That would be a violation of the speech or debate clause that covers Members of Congress while they are doing their job-- a constitutional defense.

Now, the speech or debate clause gives us broad constitutional protection from executive branch interference. This is what you call keeping the executive branch from running over the people's elected representatives. But the Biden DOJ--they were out for Donald Trump. They wanted to block him from ever being President. They wanted to go get him six ways from Sunday. They were after him. So they decided: Well, there is a risk, but if you put a gag order on it, they are never going to find out. So let's go ahead. Let's roll the dice, and let's go for it. Let's abuse their right to privacy. Let's infringe on the speech or debate clause. Let's get in and tear up the Stored Communications Act. All because they wanted to go after Donald Trump.

Well, thank God we have whistleblowers, and these whistleblowers over at DOJ came to Chairman Grassley. He started working on this. And, you know what, we did find out. We learned that Verizon and T-Mobile complied with the subpoena request--no questions asked, no concern for constitutional rights; they just rolled over without a fight.

During yesterday's hearing, we got to ask them: Why did you comply with these secret, unlawful subpoenas? Did getting a gag order on it not raise a red flag to you? Why did you do this?

The answer was not satisfactory. The representative for Verizon said they were aware of the speech or debate clause--good for them--but they had no system in place to flag subpoena requests for sitting Members of Congress. But, oh, they say they have learned a lesson. As he put it, ``Our processes could have been better suited to meet what was a new and unique set of circumstances.''

Well, you know what, we are turning 250 years old. I don't think the Constitution is exactly new. I don't think the speech or debate clause is exactly new. I think their response was actually an understatement.

Verizon utterly failed in its responsibility. So did T-Mobile. In fact, the company was under a specific contract that required it to notify the Senate Sergeant at Arms about subpoenas related to Senators. I think Verizon forgot that.

Yet not a single person at Verizon or any of the carriers lost their job because of this. I went down the road: Has anyone been fired? The answer was no and no and no, not a single person.

There has to be accountability. If they can trample on the constitutional rights of sitting Members of Congress and the President of the United States, they can do it to every U.S. citizen. We cannot let this stand.

Arctic Frost marked the worst weaponization of government in American history--worse than Watergate--and I am determined to make certain that Jack Smith is held accountable and that no American citizen--no one-- ever is going to face the weaponization of the U.S. Government against them.

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