{"id":2674602,"date":"2026-10-02T10:05:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-jack-smith-operation-shows-lawfare-will-only-get-worse\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T10:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:09:15","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-jack-smith-operation-shows-lawfare-will-only-get-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-jack-smith-operation-shows-lawfare-will-only-get-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jack Smith Operation Shows Lawfare Will Only Get Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-jack-smith-operation-shows-lawfare-will-only-get-worse%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2674602&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the increasingly dangerous nature of lawfare, highlighting recent disclosures about Jack Smith&#8217;s operations targeting political opponents, especially former President Trump. It details how Smith&#8217;s team conducted widespread abuses, including secret seizure of phone records from Congress members, spying on journalists, and collecting personal financial details from ordinary Americans who donated to Republican causes. These intrusions illustrate the growing sophistication and brutality of lawfare tactics, which have evolved from crude political hoaxes like the 2004 false story about George W. Bush to complex, state-backed efforts such as Russiagate, which used fabricated narratives and extensive legal machinery to target Trump and his associates. Despite the severity of these tactics, accountability remains largely absent, with few consequences for those involved. The author emphasizes the urgent need for conservatives to develop systems and institutions to expose and combat lawfare, warning that without decisive action, this weaponization of law and law enforcement will continue to threaten American institutions and individuals.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Lawfare grows more dangerous with every operation. This week\u2019s disclosures about Jack Smith\u2019s operation show how far that machinery reached. <\/p>\n<p>We already knew about Smith\u2019s sweeping indictments of President Trump on flimsy charges and many of the operation\u2019s other abuses, including the secret <a href=\"https:\/\/judiciary.house.gov\/sites\/evo-subsites\/republicans-judiciary.house.gov\/files\/evo-media-document\/2026-09-23-jack-smith-toll-records-report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seizure<\/a> of phone records from Republican lawmakers, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/press\/rep\/releases\/news-jack-smiths-investigative-team-secretly-obtained-text-messages-from-44-members-of-congress-amid-trump-probe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">review<\/a> of text messages involving 44 members of Congress, and <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/02\/27\/dems-silent-after-new-revelations-about-jack-smiths-spying-ops-on-political-enemies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">subpoenas<\/a> seeking records on at least 430 Republican individuals and entities. This week, we also found out that Smith\u2019s team of lawfare operators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/press\/rep\/releases\/breaking-jack-smith-obtained-journalist-communications-with-government-sources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spied<\/a> on nearly 50 journalists, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MZHemingway\/status\/2105013011815510233?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">including<\/a> Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist. <\/p>\n<p>They <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/press\/rep\/releases\/breaking-jack-smiths-team-collected-checks-from-nearly-5000-americans-in-all-50-states\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">seized<\/a> copies of 4,782 checks written by Americans who donated to Trump and Republican groups, exposing donors\u2019 names, home addresses, bank and routing numbers, and signatures. These were ordinary Americans dragged into the lawfare simply because they wrote a check to support a political candidate. Smith also swept up <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/julie_kelly2\/status\/2105347999933333693?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">records<\/a> of people who had run pro-Trump ads. The sheer extent of the intrusions and abuses is incredible. <\/p>\n<p>We can get furious about each round of revelations, with every new disclosure producing another round of outrage. But the real lesson, and the far more frightening reality we have to grapple with, is that lawfare keeps getting more sophisticated and more vicious.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, this progression began in crude form in 2004, when <em>60 Minutes<\/em> aired a false story about President George W. Bush\u2019s service in the Texas Air National Guard. The broadcast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/a-look-back-at-the-controversy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">relied<\/a> on documents claiming Bush had received favorable treatment and failed to meet his obligations. Lawyer Harry MacDougald, a through-line in fighting lawfare over the years, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/bush-guard-docs-flap-marches-on\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">exposed<\/a> those documents as forgeries. Dan Rather, who ran the story, was ultimately forced to resign. <\/p>\n<p>Perhaps not coincidentally, MacDougald now represents Jeff Clark, the former Trump administration assistant attorney general who became a prominent victim of the far more developed lawfare system that followed. Clark was targeted by the Jack Smith operation and by the ongoing <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/jeffrey-clark\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">campaign<\/a> to strip him of his law license. And MacDougald himself has been pulled into the same machinery, with an ethics complaint <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/article\/the-legal-profession-reckons-with-jan.-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">targeting<\/a> him over his legal work in election-related cases.<\/p>\n<p>The 2004 operation was a political hoax, but it was not quite lawfare. It had some of lawfare\u2019s common elements: fabricated evidence, a hoax laundered through a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/is-he-guilty-of-sexual-misconduct-depends-on-his-political-party\/\" title=\"Is He Guilty Of Sexual Misconduct? Depends On His Political Party.\">major media outlet<\/a> that actively carried the attack, and the political objective of defeating its target (Bush). But the operation was crude, and its defining weapon was missing. The state\u2019s investigative and prosecutorial power had not been turned against Bush or his associates to surveil them, prosecute them, bankrupt them, or imprison them.<\/p>\n<p>By 2016, the method had become far more sophisticated. Russiagate became the origin of what we now know as lawfare. It began with a fabricated narrative, then built an entire operational ecosystem around it. Instead of simply laundering a false story through one <em>60 Minutes<\/em> broadcast, the story was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/18\/spygate-101-a-primer-on-the-russia-collusion-hoaxs-years-long-plot-to-take-down-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">laundered<\/a> through Christopher Steele, who received it from a firm hired by the Clinton campaign and repackaged it as a quasi-British intelligence product. Additionally, a made-up story about Trump communicating with Russia through Russia\u2019s Alfa Bank was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/26\/court-testimony-shows-spygate-conspirators-deceived-the-fbi-using-same-strategy-twice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">laundered<\/a> through a team of purported computer scientists to give it a veneer of credibility. Those false narratives were then released through a whole network of media lawfare collaborators.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, for the first time, the operation brought the legal and law enforcement machinery to bear. With the help of <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/07\/22\/james-comey-and-john-brennan-will-be-convicted-by-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director John Brennan<\/a>, the fabricated narrative became a federal operation, using investigations, surveillance warrants, leaks, and a special counsel to try first to defeat candidate Trump and, when that failed, to remove him from office. The operation targeted not just Trump, but the people around him. Campaign figures, advisers, associates, and people with only loose connections to Trump were dragged into the investigation. They faced legal bills, public smears, professional ruin, bankruptcy, and, in some cases, prison. The purpose was to isolate Trump, cripple his ability to govern, and make anyone who stood with him pay a price. It largely succeeded.<\/p>\n<p>Russiagate brought the elements of lawfare together in one coordinated campaign. But it was only a precursor to the next evolution, which we are seeing more and more clearly with Jack Smith. He took the 2016 playbook and multiplied its viciousness, reach, and breadth until Russiagate looked like kindergarten. His operation pursued Trump through criminal cases while drawing in lawyers, lawmakers, journalists, conservative political organizations, and thousands of ordinary Americans whose only connection was making perfectly legal political donations, many for tiny amounts.<\/p>\n<p>This should make everyone stop and confront what is happening. In 20 years, we went from a forged document aired on television to a federal operation targeting conservative journalists and random Americans. The target list keeps growing, the abuses keep expanding, and the people responsible keep acting as if the next escalation will never be challenged.<\/p>\n<p>The point must be unmistakably understood: they will try again. The next operation will be more sophisticated, more sweeping, and more ruthless. It will borrow every method used before and build new ones around them. Much time has already been wasted in the second Trump term, leaving only a narrow window to prepare for what might come after the 2026 midterms or in 2029.<\/p>\n<p>While the lawfare machinery has occupied the field largely unopposed and grown ever more sophisticated, conservatives have yet to build the institutions, infrastructure, strategic framework, and legal capacity needed to expose and counter lawfare before it destroys more lives and institutions. Case by case, defendant by defendant, the machinery will keep winning. It has to be confronted as a system.<\/p>\n<p>But even that would not substitute for what is most needed and most absent: accountability. To this day, no one other than <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/08\/14\/kevin-clinesmith-corrupt-fbi-attorney-who-falsified-carter-page-fisa-warrant-expected-to-plead-guilty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kevin Clinesmith<\/a>, an FBI lawyer who forged a document in the effort to target Trump, has been held to account. He got off with a slap on the wrist. The operators, including Comey, Brennan, and Smith, got off scot-free. And unlike in 2004, when his participation in the hoax cost Dan Rather his job, the media participants in lawfare have faced no accountability either.<\/p>\n<p>All of this has to change, or lawfare will only get worse.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      Hans Mahncke is the founder of the Counterlawfare Institute. He holds LL.B., LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law. He is the author of  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Swiftboating-America-Russiagate-Crossfire-Investigation\/dp\/B0FNXCQ8KM\/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.DjUY7RzzAZSNTHfV6s3mDQ.po8ROEXuuEtP_ZSfZOTJoE1AzqwYsCuRG4SGgBJl_7U&#038;dib_tag=se&#038;keywords=%22Swiftboating+America%3A+Exposing+the+Russiagate+Fraud%2C+from+the+Steele+Dossier+to+the+FBI%27s+Crossfire+Hurricane+Investigation.%22&#038;qid=1759949638&#038;sr=8-1\">&#8220;Swiftboating America: Exposing the Russiagate Fraud, from the Steele Dossier to the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.&#8221;<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawfare expands, becoming more dangerous and sophisticated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1441,"featured_media":2674603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-01-at-4.07.15-PM-1024x569.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546,33651],"tags":[32463,16727,38518,86604],"class_list":["post-2674602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","category-the-western-journal","tag-jack-smith","tag-lawfare","tag-legal-strategy","tag-political-justice"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-01-at-4.07.15-PM-1024x569.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2674602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674607,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674602\/revisions\/2674607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2674603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2674602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2674602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2674602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}