: Former Special Counsel Jack Smith allegedly sought the private, personal cellphone records of then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots, Fox News Digital has learned.
Smith also sought the private phone records of now-former Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas.
Fox News Digital exclusively reviewed the document that FBI Director Kash Patel recently shared with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson containing the explosive revelations. Grassley and Johnson have been leading a joint investigation into Smith’s ‘Arctic Frost’ probe.
According to the document, Smith, on Jan. 24, 2023, allegedly sought the ‘toll records for the personal cell phones of U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (AT&T) and U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (Verizon.)’
The information was included as part of a ‘Significant Case Notification’ drafted by the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division May 25, 2023.
‘Jack Smith’s radical and deranged investigation was never about finding the truth,’ former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Fox News Digital. ‘It was a blatant weaponizing of the Justice Department to attack political opponents of the Biden administration. Perhaps no action underscores this point more than the illegal attempt to access the phone records of sitting members of the House and Senate — including the Speaker of the House.’
‘His illegal targeting demands real accountability,’ McCarthy continued. ‘And I am confident Congress will hold hearings and access documents in its investigation into Jack Smith’s own abuses.’
‘At the same time, I will ask my own counsel to pursue all areas of redress so this does not happen to anyone else,’ McCarthy said.
The revelations come after Fox News Digital exclusively reported in October that Smith and his ‘Arctic Frost’ team investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots were tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican senators as part of the probe, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
An official told Fox News Digital that those records were collected in 2023 by Smith and his team after subpoenaing major telephone providers.
Smith has called his decision to subpoena and track Republican lawmakers’ phone records ‘entirely proper’ and consistent with Justice Department policy.
‘As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol,’ Smith’s lawyers wrote in October to Grassley.
Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., have been investigating the matter, and seeking answers from major telephone providers.
In AT&T’s response to Grassley, it noted that Smith sought phone records for two members of Congress.
Fox News Digital has learned that AT&T informed Grassley’s staff that one of the members was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, but refused to disclose the second member.
The newly declassified document reviewed by Fox News Digital appears to reveal that the second member of Congress that Smith sought records from AT&T for was McCarthy, R-Calif.
Fox News Digital obtained AT&T’s response to Grassley, in which the company notes that Smith sent them a grand jury subpoena that included a request for phone records associated with two members of Congress.
‘However, when AT&T raised questions with Special Counsel Smith’s office concerning the legal basis for seeking records of members of Congress, the Special Counsel did not pursue the subpoena further, and no records were produced,’ AT&T told Grassley.
AT&T also stressed that the company ‘has not produced any records or other information to Special Counsel Jack Smith’ relating to ‘any member of Congress.’
‘Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation looks more and more out of control with each passing day,’ Grassley told Fox News Digital. ‘Based on my oversight, it was a fishing expedition that swept up Republicans in and out of Congress, from top to bottom.’
‘Arctic Frost’ was opened inside the bureau April 13, 2022. Smith was appointed as special counsel to take over the probe in November 2022.
An FBI official told Fox News Digital that ‘Arctic Frost’ is a ‘prohibited case,’ and that the review required FBI officials to go ‘above and beyond in order to deliver on this promise of transparency.’ The discovery is part of a broader ongoing review, Fox News Digital has learned.
Smith, after months of investigating, charged President Donald Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request.
Smith’s case cost taxpayers more than $50 million.
Smith did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.