Republican lawmakers say phone companies must reveal whose records were seized in a sweeping Jan. 6 probe that captured data on more than 400 people tied to President Trump and his allies.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Republican senators on Wednesday issued subpoenas to three major telecommunications companies seeking unredacted records identifying individuals whose phone data was collected during Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation, known internally as “Arctic Frost,” according to reporting by Just the News.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent subpoenas to AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen after earlier voluntary requests failed to produce the names of individuals associated with the phone numbers targeted in the probe. Johnson said previous responses from the companies were either heavily redacted or omitted the identities of the people whose records were obtained, a concern echoed by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
The subpoenas were issued by Johnson’s subcommittee, with cover letters co-signed by Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and has conducted parallel oversight of Smith’s activities. Both senators said the action was necessary to clarify the scope of what they describe as an expansive data collection effort tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol investigation, as reported by Just the News.
Documents released last year by Johnson and Grassley showed that during the Biden administration, the FBI opened an investigation into President Donald Trump and hundreds of his associates related to Jan. 6 activities, relying on what the senators characterized as weak evidence. That investigation included obtaining phone records and geolocation data for prominent lawmakers and more than 400 individuals linked to Trump or his movement, according to prior reporting by Just the News.
“We’re still learning just how far Jack Smith’s fishing expedition went,” Grassley said in a statement to Just the News. “These subpoenas from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will shine additional light on whose phone data Smith requested, including which members of Congress were impacted.” Grassley added, “I thank Senator Johnson for his longstanding partnership in our oversight of Arctic Frost.”
Congressional investigators have previously said Smith cast a wide net of subpoenas seeking phone records from multiple Republican members of Congress and hundreds of other individuals as part of the Jan. 6 inquiry. They also disclosed that Smith obtained government-issued phones that had belonged to President Trump and his former vice president.
Grassley’s office has already released a document listing the lawmakers it says were caught up in the data sweep, identifying one Republican House member and 10 senators. That document was previously provided by Grassley’s office and made public during earlier stages of the investigation.
Johnson said the new subpoenas are intended to force telecom companies to fully identify those affected by the records requests. “Over the last year, Chairman Grassley and I identified hundreds of individuals and entities that Jack Smith swept into his massive partisan dragnet, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA and elected officials,” Johnson told Just the News. “In response to these subpoenas, I expect the telecom companies to identify even more people Jack Smith ruthlessly targeted as he weaponized the federal justice system against law-abiding patriots.”
The senators said the subpoenas are a continuation of their broader oversight effort into the origins, scope, and conduct of the Arctic Frost investigation, with the goal of determining how extensively Americans’ communications data was collected and whether members of Congress were improperly swept into the probe.
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