Sen. Hawley calls FBI surveillance of GOP senators ‘worse than Watergate’

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tore into Special Counsel Jack Smith, accusing him of “spying on political opponents” during the Jan. 6 probe and calling the alleged surveillance “an abuse of power beyond Watergate.”

The FBI, working under Smith’s direction, obtained call logs and metadata tied to nearly a dozen GOP senators, including Hawley, as part of its investigation into the Capitol riot, Fox News reported. The tracking involved call records and timestamps, not the content of the conversations.

Hawley told Fox News Digital on Monday that the newly released documents suggest that Biden’s administration was “spying on the president’s political opponents,” which he called “a profound violation of the separation of powers.”

He said the activity fits what he views as part of a broader pattern of executive overreach under Biden, citing alleged surveillance of Catholic churches, parents at school board meetings and social media censorship.

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“The truth comes out. Biden’s Stasi who claimed to be saving ‘our sacred democracy’ in fact worked overtime to destroy it — all for power. They spied on Catholic churches, prosecuted pro-lifers, deployed the FBI against parents at school board meetings — and tried to tap the phones of their political enemies. Including mine,” Hawley wrote on X.

“This is an abuse of power beyond Watergate, beyond J. Edgar Hoover, one that directly strikes at the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment,” he continued. “We need a full investigation of all involved: who knew about it, who ordered it, and who approved it. Anyone and everyone who violated the law must be prosecuted. The way to save the country is to restore the rule of law.”

Hawley said he was targeted because he is a conservative Republican who vocally opposed Biden and “his lawlessness.”

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“It’s obviously totally partisan,” the senator said, adding that he’s proud to have called out what he described as the abuse of power by the FBI. He also said the alleged conduct was “dangerous, very, very dangerous” for the country.

Hawley said the scope of the alleged surveillance was even greater than Watergate.

“This is worse than Watergate,” he said, arguing that Biden “activated the entire government to go after anybody who dared to oppose him.” He accused the administration of using agencies such as the FBI, DOJ and DHS to silence critics and monitor private citizens.

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Hawley called for a full Justice Department investigation and said appointing a special counsel “who will devote their full attention to it” would be appropriate.

“We’ve got to have a total accountability, total transparency and a full accounting of everybody who was involved in this — everybody who knew about it, signed off on it, and had any part in it, and I just can’t imagine that this is legal… and anybody who committed legal violations needs to be prosecuted,” he said.

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Hawley has framed the controversy as a test of constitutional limits, saying the government must be held accountable when power is used to pursue political opponents instead of upholding the rule of law.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.