Former special counsel Jack Smith is firing back at a Republican senator's bid to pull his law license, and he isn't mincing words.
Smith branded the disbarment complaint from Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) a "retaliatory political stunt" in a Nov. 3 letter to Tennessee's attorney discipline board, Politico reported Friday. Smith argued Hagerty's complaint gets the reach of congressional immunity wrong and leans on documents that were selectively leaked.
Hagerty filed the complaint with the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee one day after Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September. That hearing went badly for Republicans, according to Politico, giving Smith a platform to push back on claims that he overstepped in his probe of Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Hagerty asked the board to yank Smith's license over his efforts to obtain the phone records of Hagerty and other GOP lawmakers around Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's win.
GOP senators have been especially furious that Smith secured a court order barring their phone carriers from telling them their call logs had been subpoenaed. The records showed who the lawmakers contacted near the time of the Capitol attack but not what they said.
Republicans claim the nondisclosure orders run afoul of the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, which shields members of Congress from legal action tied to their official duties. They've also faulted Smith for not telling the judge who signed the orders that lawmakers' records were involved.
Smith's attorneys dismissed the complaint as "meritless" and said it "retaliates against Mr. Smith's exercise of his right to free speech." They argued the clause only protects lawmakers from being forced to testify or facing criminal penalties over legislative work, and that a confidential subpoena for phone records crosses neither line.
His team also stressed that the secrecy order was designed to keep Trump, who faced an obstruction charge and has lashed out at witnesses in the case, from meddling with the investigation.
Hagerty isn't the only Tennessee Republican targeting Smith. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, now the state's governor-elect, has sued Smith and the Justice Department in federal court, asking a judge to force the government to destroy any remaining copies of her phone records.
Neither Hagerty nor the Tennessee board immediately responded to Politico's request for comment.