Like many slang words in the English language, “jacked” has multiple meanings, including a few that seem to conflict. For example, when one is excited or full of adrenaline, he or she is said to be “jacked up,” but not to be confused with “jacked up” meaning injured or damaged.
This week, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee for Governor of Tennessee, was jacked up in the excited kind of way because she finally filed her threatened lawsuit against former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith. The suit alleges Smith subpoenaed Blackburn’s toll records during his investigation of President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Blackburn’s response to the revelation of Republican Senators’ records being accessed was also jacked up in the not-so-good way. Her blind loyalty to the President, her party, and most of all the power she desperately desires to maintain and wield undercuts a legitimate effort to hold the President accountable for what amounts to a coup attempt.
Blackburn and her fellow Republican Senators were outraged to learn that their phone records had been subpoenaed and reviewed by investigators looking into President Trump. Senator Josh Hawley claimed his phone had been “tapped,” which in this case is patently false.
What did happen is that the tolling data or records for some Republican senators were obtained. These records are routinely obtained as a part of law enforcement investigations. They include metadata like the time a call was made, what number the call came from, the number the call was delivered to, and the duration of the call. There is nothing in the data that reveals the content of any discussions. The ability to hear or record a conversation requires a court order that is requested based on probable cause. Smith and his team did not receive or even request a court-ordered wiretap and therefore did not listen to the conversations of Senators.
Smith requested the toll data, not to investigate Senators, but to establish the movements and actions of an ousted President pulling every lever available to him to remain in power. In this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Smith was accused of partisanship based in part on the fact that he only subpoenaed the records of Republican Senators. Some of the committee blowhards are dense, but not that dense. Smith’s interest in the GOP Senators’ records is because Trump was not calling Democrats to ask them to help him overturn the election. Duh.
Blackburn’s suit aligns with the claims of her colleagues that the accessing of the metadata violates the Speech and Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 6). The brief also leans heavily on the finding of Trump loyalist Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled Smith was unconstitutionally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Smith appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit, but Trump was re-elected before the court could rule. Blackburn’s lawyers also argue that because Smith requested a Non-Disclosure Order (NDO), Verizon was not allowed to notify Senator Blackburn and others, which would have allowed them to move to quash the subpoena.
The suit was filed on Blackburn’s behalf by the National Civil Liberties Alliance, a right-wing nonprofit focused on dismantling what they call the “administrative state.” Blackburn skipped the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, but ensured the suit was filed just a month from Election Day. The suit against Smith helps energize her far-right base and distracts from state-level issues like data centers, Flock cameras, and elimination of the grocery tax.
Whether a court will find that Smith violated the Speech and Debate Clause is unknown. Even if they do, an appeal is likely. Blackburn was never a target of the investigation, and as far as we know, neither were any other Senators. The target was Donald J. Trump, who fabricated a narrative that mass voter fraud occurred and that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. His minions created false slates of electors and lied to the American public on national newscasts. Republican operatives worked with white supremacist groups like Oath Keep and Proud Boys to rally supporters at the Capitol, and President Trump incited them to stop the certification of the results. That resulted in the death and injury of law enforcement officers and millions in damages.
A court may ultimately say that Blackburn is right regarding the law, but her defense of Trump and the Capitol Rioters, her shameless attacks on Jack Smith’s integrity, and her leveraging of the legal system to bolster her flailing candidacy are, well, jacked up.