EXCLUSIVE — Nearly two years before becoming special counsel Jack Smith’s principal deputy prosecutor, J.P. Cooney advocated for repealing the Constitution’s speech or debate clause in a message sent on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

“I’m an advocate for repealing the clause but absent that, we’re stuck with it and the way it’s been interpreted,” Cooney wrote in the previously undisclosed message sent to another colleague on Jan. 5, 2021, according to a copy obtained by the Washington Examiner ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing interviewing Smith.