Former special counsel Jack Smith told House lawmakers he lawfully obtained their cellphone data as part of his investigation into President Trump’s actions connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Mr. Smith, testifying Wednesday behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee, gave a full-throated defense of secret surveillance, which involved at least eight senators and several congressmen, among them Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican.
Mr. Smith said their phone data was collected because the president called them on the day of the riot, when Congress was in session to certify the results of the 2020 election that Mr. Trump contested.
“January 6 was an attack on the structure of our democracy in which over 100 heroic law enforcement officers were assaulted,” Mr. Smith said, according to excerpts of his testimony obtained by The Washington Times. “Over 160 individuals later pled guilty to assaulting police officers that day. Exploiting that violence, President Trump and his associates tried to call members of Congress in furtherance of their criminal scheme, urging them to further delay certification of the 2020 election. I didn’t choose those members; President Trump did.”
The records of more than a dozen members of Congress were secretly subpoenaed, most of them beginning in May 2023 and seeking records for a narrow time frame — the days before, during and after the Jan. 6 riot.
The secret examination of lawmakers’ phone data was part of the Biden Justice Department’s Arctic Frost investigation that began in 2022 and was tasked with probing the actions of Mr. Trump and other Republicans who contested the 2020 election that he contended was rigged.
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In all cases, either a grand jury or a judge ordered the phone companies to keep the collection of their records hidden from the lawmakers.
Under Arctic Frost, Mr. Smith and his legal team issued an additional 197 subpoenas seeking records and communications of more than 430 people and organizations. All appear to be Republican.
Those targeted included Trump advisers Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino and the president’s son- and daughter-in-law, Jared Kushner and Lara Trump, who all worked for the first Trump administration or the Trump campaign. Subpoenas were issued to people and businesses seeking statistical data and analysis related to Republican fundraising, as well as individual communications with several national media outlets, including CBS and Fox News.
Mr. Smith and his legal team have pushed back against lawmakers who accused them of spying, wiretapping or surveilling their phone data, arguing that the records are “historical in nature and do not include the content of the calls.”
But lawmakers are furious about the undercover operation and accuse the Biden administration of spying on them for political purposes, namely stopping Mr. Trump from winning a second White House term.
The Arctic Frost probe explicitly sought and obtained Mr. Jordan’s cellphone data dating back to January 2020, a full 11 months before the presidential election and Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn then-President-elect Biden’s narrow win.
“They spied on President Trump. They spied on senators. Now, we just learned, they spied on me. If they can do it to us, they can do it to you,” Mr. Jordan said.