Jack Smith’s Team Knew They Might Face Legal Challenges For Secretly Seeking Senators’ Phone Records
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team pressed forward with secretly seeking phone records for Republican members of Congress, even after being warned it exposed them to “litigation risk,” internal emails show. Emails…
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team pressed forward with secretly seeking phone records for Republican members of Congress, even after being warned it exposed them to “litigation risk,” internal emails show.
Emails released Tuesday by Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin reveal prosecutors weighing which members of Congress to target with subpoenas as part of the “Arctic Frost” investigation, which became Smith’s 2020 election case against President Donald Trump.
“As you are aware, there is some litigation risk regarding whether compelled disclosure of toll records of a Member’s legislative calls violates the Speech or Debate Clause in the D.C. Circuit,” former head of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section John Keller told prosecutors in a May 2023 email greenlighting the subpoenas.
Smith’s subpoenas for nearly a dozen Republican lawmakers requested “detailed records for inbound and outbound calls, text messages, direct connect, and voicemail messages” between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021. Smith obtained nondisclosure orders hiding the requests from members, which were approved by Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee.
A grand jury subpoena for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan obtained by the Biden DOJ requested records from a nearly two year