‘And, I Think He Ought to Have His Head in a Bag’: Sen. Kennedy Torches Jack Smith as New Docs Expose Spying on 44 Members of Congress — GOP Senators DEMAND Prosecutions
michael 
As Todd Blanche stood before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA., didn’t flinch when The Gateway Pundit asked him about the crook at the center of one of the most explosive government spying scandals in modern American history.
“I don’t know Mr. Smith. I never met him,” Kennedy said. “I’ve just watched him operate. I think he is a political zealot. I think he’s an ideologue. I think he hates Republicans. He exercises power emotionally and immaturely…And I think he ought to have his head in a bag.”
Kennedy delivered those words, and more, to The Gateway Pundit and the assembled press gaggle on Wednesday.
The Louisiana senator’s blunt verdict hit like a hammer as fresh documents confirmed what many feared: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team secretly obtained and reviewed the actual contents of text messages from 44 members of Congress during the Biden administration’s “Artic Frost” investigation.
And that was only the latest chapter in a scandal that keeps getting darker.
This is the police state Joe Biden and Kamala Harris built, one that treated political opposition as domestic enemies, spied on sitting lawmakers and locked up dissenters while Democrats held unchecked power.
A Runaway Train With No Brakes
What began as an FBI probe codenamed Artic Frost in April 2022 exploded into a sprawling, unconstitutional dragnet once handed to Smith. Investigators bypassed mandatory filter teams designed to protect privileged material.
They pulled White House text messages spanning October 2020 to January 20, 2021 — overwhelmingly targeting Republicans.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, one of the 44 targeted, released the records alongside Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley declared. Biden DOJ and FBI officials “ignored their own routine investigative protocols” to rifle through lawmaker’ messages, even internal warnings about constitutional violations.
This went far beyond metadata. In a clear disregard for constitutional protections, including the Speech or Debate Clause and Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches, the Biden FBI secretly obtained tolling data — call logs, numbers, durations, and local information — on at least eight Republican senators and one House member for the critical January 4-7, 2021 window.
Court-ordered nondisclosure, gag orders prevented the lawmakers from even knowing they were targets. Among those spied on: Sens. Chuck Grassely, Ron Johnson, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Mike Lee and others.
The dragnet operation ballooned to 197 subpoenas targeting more than 400 Republican individuals and entities — conservative organizations, donors, and media outlets, you name it.
WHO IS JACK SMITH?
A career prosecutor with a history of aggressive, high-profile cases, Smith led the Biden DOJ’s election-related probes, including the massive January 6 investigations that resulted in hundreds of prosecutions of Trump supporters. Now, new evidence confirms his team spied on Congress, then lied about it.
In a December 2025 closed-door deposition, Smith was asked whether his team had reviewed the content of text messages involving members of Congress. He answered, “No.”
This is Jack Smith
He spied on me and several other senators
Then he lied about it
Not cool pic.twitter.com/BvhB5zvTNU
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 15, 2026
The records say otherwise.
Republicans are refusing to let this scandal die in the shadows.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., among those targeted, called the revelations a “blatant abuse of power— exactly what our Founders warned about.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., whose own records were swept up in the probe, denounced the operation as “Biden’s Stasi” and “an abuse of power beyond Watergate.” He has repeatedly called for Jack Smith’s prosecution, accusing the special counsel of lying to Congress under oath and conducting “a flagrant violation of the Constitution.”
On the Senate floor and in interviews this week, he demanded full hearings, a special prosecutor and criminal charges for every official involved.
Jack Smith lied to Congress UNDER OATH about Joe Biden’s DOJ illegally obtaining Senators’ text messages – including mine
He also tracked my location and metadata – a flagrant violation of the Constitution.
Jack Smith ought to be prosecuted pic.twitter.com/rMCmN3s3Cq
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 16, 2026
Grassley and Johnson keep dropping whistleblower documents and pressing for Smith to testify under oath. Senate subcommittees led by Sens. Cruz, Blackburn, Hawley and Schmitt have grilled telecom executives and exposed internal emails in which Smith’s team discussed evading Speech or Debate Clause protections.
Kennedy himself endorsed summoning Smith to testify: “Fine with me. I think that’s a swell idea.”
Kennedy on Blanche: A Potential Firewall
On the same day, as he weighed Todd Blanche’s confirmation as Attorney General — a potential guardrail against future weaponization — Kennedy struck a more optimistic tone.
“My guess? Yeah,” Kennedy said when asked if Blanche would be confirmed. “I don’t think any fair-minded person can look at his resume and not conclude that he is qualified…My Democratic colleagues don’t have anything against him personally. They just don’t like him because he was appointed by President Trump.”
Kennedy dismissed the corporate press’ concerns over an anti-weaponization fund: It never came into existence, and related settlements have already been struck down in court.
The Lingering Dread
No top architect of Artic Frost has faced real consequences. Phone records. Text contents. Gag orders. A partisan fishing expedition that treated the Constitution like an inconvenience, all hidden until whistleblowers and Republican lawmakers dragged it daylight.
Americans saw what four more years of Biden-Harris would have looked like: a full-blown police state where thought crimes against the regime meant surveillance, SWAT teams, indictments, and prison. One more Democratic term and the republic we know could have been gone forever.
Will those who ran this spying machine face justice?
Or will the GOP once again play by rules the other side laughs at?
The post ‘And, I Think He Ought to Have His Head in a Bag’: Sen. Kennedy Torches Jack Smith as New Docs Expose Spying on 44 Members of Congress — GOP Senators DEMAND Prosecutions appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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