Jack Smith Secretly Sought Nearly Two Years Of Kash Patel’s Phone Records, Subpoenas Show
Former special counsel Jack Smith sought nearly two years of phone records from Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, new documents show.
Smith’s team subpoenaed recordings of phone calls and text messages — which did not include their contents — as well as Patel’s mailing, residential and email addresses, according to documents released by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley ahead of a hearing Tuesday.
Two subpoenas requested data from October 1, 2020, to February 22, 2023, and January 1, 2021, to November 23, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Mazzone and U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, signed nondisclosure orders keeping the subpoenas secret. (RELATED: Judge suggests Jack Smith flouted court order in ‘brazen’ final action)
“The American people deserve to know the full extent of Jack Smith’s partisan investigative tactics that unfairly targeted sitting members of Congress as well as ordinary, law-abiding citizens,” Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said in a statement. “I expect AT&T and Verizon to fully comply with my January 13, 2026 subpoenas for records that will provide Senator Grassley and me with even more evidence of the Biden Administration’s efforts to weaponize the federal justice system against President Trump and his allies.”
Other documents released Tuesday include a January 2023 list of members of Congress that Smith’s team hoped to subpoena. Lee Zeldin, now the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar were on the list, along with members whose records were later subpoenaed, such as Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“I just realized that before telling Main [main justice] we are going to be issuing subpoenas for so many members that I should make sure Jack knows about it,” a prosecutor wrote in an email.
Smith researched the tolling records of more than a dozen Republican members of Congress, including former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, records previously released by Grassley revealed.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 18: Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, arrives at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats in the Hart Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. A closed session immediately followed the hearing. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
A January 2023 attorney general briefing also suggested further reliance on the committee’s January 6 report, noting that Smith’s team “reviewed it page by page” and “incorporated it into our investigative plan.” Smith said in his special counsel report that the committee’s work “represented only a small portion of the Bureau’s investigative record.” (RELATED: Jack Smith Makes Four Big Admissions in Fiery Public Hearing)
Smith admitted during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in January that Cassidy Hutchinson, a key committee witness, had not been excluded as a witness, although he agreed that elements of her testimony were “hearsay.”
Three phone company executives testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February to explain why they turned over the records to Smith’s team. Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T received at least 84 subpoenas during the Arctic Frost investigation that became the Smith v. President Donald Trump case, according to Grassley.
AT&T was the only company to question a subpoena, asking Smith’s team to explain whether a request to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz could involve constitutional protections.
“Democrats criticized us for not putting Jack Smith before us at the beginning,” Grassley said in his opening remarks Tuesday. “If we had followed the Democrats’ premature and misguided strategy, we would not have had much of the information we currently have showing that Jack Smith misled Congress and the public, if not outright lied.”
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