WASHINGTON ― Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday told the Justice Department it should prosecute former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining lawmakers’ text messages in the course of his investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow his 2020 election loss.

Trump has long dreamed of throwing Smith in prison as part of his quest for vengeance against his political enemies and his mission to turn the Justice Department upside down.

On his website, the president tentatively hailed the referral: “Justice at last???”

In a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed Smith made false statements during a December deposition with the committee when he said he had not sought a search warrant for lawmakers’ texts. Instead, Smith said he sought only “toll” records that showed the times of phone calls between certain lawmakers and White House officials.

It’s not that Smith lied, Jordan contends, but rather that he made a false statement in the eyes of the law because he didn’t volunteer more information in his answer.

“Under relevant federal statutes, a witness makes a false statement when the witness provides a half-truth or excludes information necessary to make statements accurate,” Jordan said in his letter to Blanche.

The Justice Department previously tried to prosecute another Trump foe, former FBI director James Comey, for making a false statement to Congress, a crime that carries a five-year prison sentence. The case was so weak a career prosecutor resigned rather than do Trump’s bidding, and then a judge threw it out because the replacement prosecutor was illegally appointed. (Now the Trump administration’s trying to get Comey for posting a photo online of allegedly threatening seashells.)

In Smith’s case, Republicans obtained documents this month showing Smith actually did get his hands on text messages from lawmakers when his office asked the National Archives and Records Administration for presidential records that included texts between lawmakers and administration officials. So even though Smith truthfully said he hadn’t sought to obtain those records via subpoenas to telecom firms, Jordan contends, he misled the committee by not saying he’d obtained the records another way.

Smith’s lawyers, Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski, called Smith’s testimony completely truthful.

“The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement ― the letter concedes he did not — but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked,” they wrote in a letter to Blanche and Jordan.

Jordan’s referral “reflects a chilling eagerness to weaponize the justice system by attacking a career, nonpartisan public servant who faithfully and fearlessly performed his duties by following the facts and the law,” they added.

Lawmakers have been furious Smith scrutinized their contacts with Trump in the course of his investigation into Trump’s attempt to remain in the White House despite losing an election. The late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) even championed a proposal to allow senators to sue the Justice Department for millions in damages if their phone records had been obtained.

In his deposition, Smith said he was simply following the evidence in a criminal investigation.

“President Trump and his associates tried to call members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election,” Smith said. “I didn’t choose those members; President Trump did.”

Smith secured indictments against Trump for defrauding voters with election lies that fueled a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as for his attempts to intimidate state election officials to overturn his electoral defeat. Trump beat the rap only by getting reelected to the White House.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the judiciary committee’s top Democrat, called the criminal referral an embarrassment.

“It seems Republican Members of Congress are lashing out because they just realized their communications with the White House became presidential records preserved at the National Archives as required by the Presidential Records Act,” Raskin said in a statement.

If the Justice Department prosecuted Smith, Raskin said, the case would be laughed out of court. “But success on the merits is not the goal,” Raskin said. “It is meant to harass Jack Smith. It is meant to please their Fox News viewership. It is meant to whitewash their own participation in a scheme to overthrow our elections.”