Two phone carriers respond to Jack Smith's subpoenas for GOP lawmakers records in Arctic Frost probe
Both companies were also given nondisclosure orders, which were signed by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the companies not to notify the lawmakers of the subpoenas for a year.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley's office on Thursday released Verizon's and AT&T's responses to former Special Counsel Jack Smith's subpoenas regarding records of multiple Republican lawmakers as part of his Arctic Frost investigation.
Recent documents have shown that the Biden administration's FBI opened an investigation into President Donald Trump and hundreds of his allies over their Jan. 6 activities with weak evidence, which included obtaining phone records and geolocations of prominent lawmakers.
The new records from Verizon and AT&T show Verizon's willingness and AT&T's objections when faced with Smith's requests for private information. Both companies were also given nondisclosure orders, which were signed by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the companies not to notify lawmakers of the subpoenas for a year, per Fox News.
AT&T said it did not disclose records for Republican lawmakers to Smith's team because it did not receive subpoenas from Smith regarding lawmakers. It did receive a grand jury subpoena for two lawmakers but Smith's team never pursued the request further when asked for clarification or reasoning behind the requests and no information was provided.
Verizon said it viewed the grand jury subpoena for information on 12 lawmakers as "facially valid" but the subpoena only contained phone numbers, not names.
"Verizon, as part of our commitment to the privacy of our customers, has a team that carefully reviews each subpoena received to ensure it is facially valid," the company said. "The subpoena we received was facially valid, and we produced information to law enforcement as a result."
Grassley's office provided the names of the lawmakers targeted, which includes one Republican House member and 10 senators, including Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott.
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.
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