Repeated calls by Democratic lawmakers to investigate President Donald Trump and his allies are raising concerns from a conservative organization previously subpoenaed during former Biden-appointed special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election investigation.
And one of its leaders is warning that young professionals could face reputational damage and steep legal bills.
Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), said Smith’s investigation left her organization on the hook for millions of dollars in fees to ensure compliance with the subpoenas.
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“Jack Smith was a test run in how to do this,” Bovard told Fox News Digital. “Jack Smith basically went in crazy, subpoenaed a host of information across the right. His goal was to map the right, and he did it. And all of that information is still on file at the FBI and the Justice Department. It doesn’t go away, so it’s sitting there waiting for the next Dem administration to pick it up, and we expect that’s what they’ll do with it.”
Though CPI was targeted by the Biden Justice Department and not Congress, Bovard said she fears Democrats will follow what she described as Smith’s playbook if they win control of Congress in the midterm elections.
The concerns come after Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., stated during an event earlier this month at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that she wants Democrats to send a “deterrence message” to any young person considering working in the Trump administration. Slotkin said she wants to “not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him.”
“They literally just want to use the government as a political weapon, which is exactly what Jack Smith also did to a bunch of people, including my organization,” Bovard told Fox News Digital. “We were never credibly accused of any crime, but we had to spend millions of dollars to comply with subpoenas.”
Bovard said Smith’s subpoenas allowed the Justice Department to obtain detailed information such as CPI’s health coverage and benefits, which she said had no relevance to Smith’s investigation.
Fox News Digital reached out to Slotkin’s office for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
Abhishek Kambli, a former federal prosecutor and a partner at Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News Digital that Congress’ ability to issue subpoenas and conduct investigations must be related to legislative duties and that Congress can’t issue subpoenas for law enforcement purposes. Kambli said remarks by Slotkin and other members of Congress could be used as evidence by anyone seeking to challenge a subpoena.
“You had multiple members of the House and the Senate that talk about the accountability agenda and holding the Trump administration accountable for wrongdoing,” Kambli told Fox News Digital.
“And if they just throw in boilerplate language that this is for legislative purpose, anyone challenging those subpoenas will have that entire record to demonstrate that it’s anything but that.”
While Michael Morley, a law professor at Florida State University College of Law, agreed that Slotkin’s remarks are bad optics, he said Congress’ authority to conduct investigations is still broad, pointing out that Congress can investigate the agencies it has created.
“I don’t think that is consistent with our norms, and I certainly don’t think it’s something that we’d like to see become a routine part of our discourse,” Morley said of Slotkin’s remarks. “But I don’t think that necessarily means it rises to the level of a constitutional issue.”
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Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said that while Congress may be able to hold someone in criminal contempt for not complying with a subpoena, it’s up to the Justice Department to prosecute, which it could decline to do.
Spakovsky said that precedent was established during the Obama administration, when the Justice Department declined to prosecute then-Attorney General Eric Holder after the House held him in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena related to the Fast and Furious investigation.
But Kambli said that doesn’t erase the risks potential Trump administration officials could face, arguing that the investigative process itself can be the punishment.
“There is no doubt that some members of Congress intend to use that process to bankrupt people who cannot afford legal representation,” Kambli told Fox News Digital. “That is a real threat, regardless of whether anyone is ultimately prosecuted.”
Bovard said when she first saw Slotkin’s remarks about seeking a “deterrence message” she interpreted them as a call to use the investigative process to “torture” young professionals.
“I don’t know that these Democrats think they can actually put people in jail. I think that’s almost beside the point for them,” Bovard told Fox News Digital.
Kambli said concerns remain that if a Democrat returns to the White House, former Trump administration officials could be subjected to Justice Department investigations.
“Where the real exposure lies is in the scenario where a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028, and they maintain both houses of Congress,” Kambli told Fox News Digital.
Just weeks before Slotkin’s remarks, Trump said during an interview with Time magazine that he would issue preemptive pardons to members of his administration before leaving the White House, pointing out that President Joe Biden issued a pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Bovard said it was unfortunate that political affairs had reached a point where mass pardons were even under consideration, but she argued they made sense given the rise in lawfare.
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“This is how we’re going to have to live: mass pardons of your political parties on either side, and that’s obviously a terrible outcome. But if, you know, the Slotkin theory is put to the test. I don’t think Trump’s going to have a choice. I think he’s going to have to do that,” Bovard told Fox News Digital.