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Internal Justice Department emails released Tuesday by Senate Republicans appear to show coordination between special counsel Jack Smith’s team and the agency’s public integrity section as prosecutors sought to subpoena the phone records of several Republican lawmakers in connection with the January 6 investigation of then-former President Donald Trump.
The documents also reveal repeated errors in which prosecutors confused Sen. Tim Scott with Sen. Rick Scott while pursuing approval for the subpoenas.
The records from 2023 were released by Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. According to the senators, the Justice Department provided the materials, along with a letter from Assistant Attorney General Patrick D. Davis, who wrote that “the Department remains committed to working with Congress to uncover the Biden Administration’s weaponization of law enforcement against its political opponents.”
“The closer you look, the more brazen Jack Smith’s actions become,” Grassley said Tuesday. “These records show Smith and his merry band of partisans operating on a legally weak foundation by intruding on Members of Congress who were involved in core constitutional functions. Ultimately, the Biden DOJ threw the Constitution to the wind in seeking information about my colleagues.”
Grassley’s office said the Justice Department’s public integrity section cleared the use of the subpoena process against members of Congress but “warned of constitutional equities.”
The office also argued that additional documents show that Smith’s team obtained far more extensive records than their description of the requests as narrowly tailored suggests. According to Grassley’s staff, subpoenas issued for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio sought records spanning months and years.
The senators also pointed to an earlier subpoena issued for records tied to Rudy Giuliani, which they say resulted in Smith’s team already possessing some member phone records before seeking the new subpoenas. Grassley’s staff said this made the proposed congressional subpoenas “generally repetitive in nature and unnecessarily encroached upon members carrying out their constitutional duties.”
Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee Justice Department investigations related to Trump. Recently released documents tied to the Arctic Frost inquiry show the rapid expansion of criminal investigations targeting Trump and his allies in 2022 as the former president signaled a possible run for office.