A group of Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has formally referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility for a misconduct investigation and urged his disbarment in two states, citing what they called “deeply disturbing revelations” that Smith secretly obtained their phone records.
In a letter sent Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Blackburn and four other GOP senators accused Smith of violating constitutional protections and professional ethics rules when his team subpoenaed call logs from multiple members of Congress during the 2023 phase of the DOJ’s Arctic Frost inquiry, a forerunner to Smith’s election-interference prosecution of President Donald Trump.
“As part of Jack Smith’s weaponized witch hunt, the Biden DOJ issued subpoenas to several telecommunications companies in 2023 regarding our cell phone records, gaining access to the time, recipient, duration, and location of calls placed on our devices from January 4, 2021, to January 7, 2021,” the lawmakers wrote. “We have yet to learn of any legal predicate for the Biden Department of Justice issuing subpoenas to obtain these cell phone records.”
Joining Blackburn on the letter were Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), all of whom were part of a group of nine Republican lawmakers who had their phone tolling data obtained as part of the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation. The lawmakers claimed Smith’s actions “trampled on the separation of powers” by targeting sitting members of Congress for their communications in and around the time of the certification of the 2020 election.
The senators further alleged that Smith’s subpoenas violated the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which shields legislators from outside inquiry into their official work. “To the best we can tell, Smith’s team went on this fishing expedition for one simple reason: we are Republicans who support President Trump,” they wrote.
According to documents released earlier this month by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Smith’s office obtained “toll analysis” data — metadata revealing who lawmakers contacted — from nine Republican officials, including Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Grassley has denounced the seizures as “arguably worse than Watergate.”
The lawmakers are also asking that Smith be referred for disbarment in both Tennessee and New York, where he is licensed to practice law. The letter argues that Smith’s actions violated state rules of professional conduct prohibiting lawyers from using investigative means that “violate the legal rights of a third person.”
“The conduct that Jack Smith and his team engaged in harkens back to a dark chapter in American history that we have not seen since the days of J. Edgar Hoover,” the letter states. “We must ensure that we never return to these disgraceful eras.”
The Arctic Frost investigation, launched by the FBI in April 2022 and later transferred to Smith in November that year, became the basis for his 2023 federal indictment against Trump on four counts in Washington, D.C. Records released by FBI Director Kash Patel show the investigation extended to at least 92 GOP-aligned individuals or groups.
GOP SEEKS COMMUNICATIONS RECORDS BETWEEN EX-DOJ STAFF AND JACK SMITH
Grassley said last week the committee could not hold any additional hearings about the Arctic Frost operation until the Justice Department released additional internal records about how federal agents tracked Republican lawmakers. Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee this week demanded that Smith appear before the committee for a transcribed interview about his “politically motivated prosecutions” of Trump.
Smith, who has kept a low profile since he left the department earlier this year, recently reemerged in a rare sit-down interview last week with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, and has partnered with a coalition of ex-career DOJ officials under the group Justice Connection. The group has publicly touted its efforts to undermine Bondi’s leadership, including running a campaign earlier this year to “derail” the judicial nomination of Emil Bove, who briefly served as acting deputy attorney general prior to his confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
