Retired Justice Department Inspector General agent Brian Burnett testified that prosecutors gave him phone numbers to subpoena without telling him some belonged to lawmakers, including then-ranking House Judiciary Republican Jim Jordan, and said knowing that would have prompted him to raise the matter with his supervisor.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
A retired Justice Department watchdog agent who helped obtain telephone records during the investigation that eventually became Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost probe testified that he was not told some of the numbers belonged to members of Congress and would have questioned the procedure had he known.
Brian Burnett, a former special agent with the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, described his role during a House Judiciary Committee interview released Tuesday night. His testimony was among six transcripts made public as the Republican-led committee continues reviewing investigative steps involving President Donald Trump and lawmakers whose communications records were obtained. The committee released interviews with Burnett and five former Smith prosecutors.
According to Just the News, Burnett spent more than 15 years at the inspector general’s office before retiring in November 2024. He testified that the Trump-related investigation operated differently from other cases he had handled during roughly three decades in law enforcement because prosecutors, rather than agents, generally determined which investigative steps he would take. The official transcript shows Burnett saying he would receive a phone number from prosecutors, identify the carrier and serve a grand jury subpoena prepared by the prosecution team.
The significance of that arrangement became a focus when committee investigators questioned Burnett about a subpoena involving Jordan, who is now Judiciary Committee chairman but was the panel’s ranking Republican at the time.
Committee staff told Burnett that the Justice Department issued a subpoena for Jordan’s phone records on April 25, 2022, accompanied by a nondisclosure order, and that Burnett appeared to have sent the subpoena information to Verizon several days later.
“I would’ve subpoenaed the number, but I did not know who the phone number belonged to, who the actual subscriber was,” Burnett was quoted as saying in the transcript.
Burnett said he did not connect the subpoena bearing his name to Jordan until after his retirement, when the issue became public.
“It was not until I had been retired and this was on the news and there was conversation about Mr. Jordan’s toll records being subpoenaed and then there was a subpoena that came up on the internet,” he explained. “So I was only assuming — that had my name on it — that that was his number. But I do not know, as we sit here today, if that was his number or not.”
Congressional investigators then asked Burnett directly whether prosecutors had informed him whose records he was obtaining.
“So prosecutors never told you that you were going to be serving a subpoena for, at the time, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee’s phone records?”
“No. I don’t have any recollection of that,” he answered.
Burnett was subsequently asked whether that knowledge would have changed how he approached the request.
“Would it have given you pause if you had known that it was going for the ranking member’s” phone data, a congressional investigator asked.
“It would’ve been something I would’ve brought up to my supervisor, if there was a different process or something we needed to be doing if we were going to do that. But I was not aware.”
The transcript shows Burnett also testified that he had never previously served a subpoena for a member of Congress’ telephone records while working at the inspector general’s office. Asked whether he knew other phone numbers provided to him belonged to lawmakers, Burnett said they were presented to him simply as numbers.
His full committee interview transcript also describes an earlier episode involving Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., that Burnett recalled being handled differently.
Burnett testified that prosecutors wanted the inspector general’s office to assist in seizing Perry’s cellphone, but his office declined.
“I believe my supervisor — as far as that team, [the] prosecution team, wanted us to go and seize Representative Perry’s cell phone. And then it came down from the IG, you know, absolutely not. We were not going to do that,” he answered.
Burnett clarified that the decision was relayed to him through his supervisor and that he had not personally participated in a conversation with Inspector General Michael Horowitz. He said the inspector general’s office determined that Perry was not a current or former Justice Department employee and therefore would not participate in the seizure.
According to Burnett, prosecutors were unhappy with that decision because the inspector general investigation had been merged with an FBI investigation and prosecutors viewed the matter as a joint effort. Burnett said the inspector general nevertheless maintained the boundary.
The testimony has become part of a broader House inquiry into how federal investigators obtained records connected to sitting lawmakers during Arctic Frost and its predecessor investigations.
Congressional investigators have gathered evidence indicating that investigators obtained toll records associated with more than a dozen members of Congress, including Jordan and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and obtained text messages involving 44 lawmakers. Some records were acquired before Smith was appointed special counsel in November 2022, while others were obtained after he took control of the investigation.
Toll records generally provide information about communications, such as numbers involved and timing, rather than the contents of calls. Jordan previously said the records associated with his phone covered an approximately two-year period.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have argued that obtaining lawmakers’ records raises constitutional concerns involving the Speech or Debate Clause and separation of powers. The committee’s characterization that investigators acted unconstitutionally is an allegation arising from its oversight investigation rather than a judicial finding. The Speech or Debate Clause protects legislative acts from certain executive- and judicial-branch scrutiny, while disputes over the precise scope of that protection have been litigated in connection with congressional records.
Burnett’s testimony provides a narrower account of how at least some subpoenas were executed: He said prosecutors supplied numbers without necessarily identifying the subscribers to him, and he served subpoenas on the appropriate telecommunications providers.
That process was itself unusual compared with his previous investigative work, Burnett testified. He told the committee that prosecutors largely directed investigative steps and that subpoena returns were sent back to prosecutors rather than being analyzed first by him as the case agent.
Asked whether he had experienced prosecutors directing an investigation in that manner during his career, Burnett said he had not encountered it in his 30 years in law enforcement.
The committee released Burnett’s interview alongside testimony from former Smith team prosecutors J.P. Cooney, Molly Gaston, Ray Hulser, Tad Duree and Thomas Windom as lawmakers examine the origins, methods and scope of Arctic Frost.
The investigation originated in scrutiny of efforts surrounding the certification of the 2020 presidential election and ultimately became part of Smith’s federal election case against Trump. Smith was appointed special counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022.
Burnett’s testimony does not establish that prosecutors deliberately concealed lawmakers’ identities from him for an improper purpose. It does establish, according to his sworn account, that he did not remember being told the Jordan subpoena involved the House Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican and that he was unaware other numbers he was asked to subpoena belonged to members of Congress.
For Burnett, that distinction mattered because, as he told congressional investigators, knowing he was seeking the records of a sitting lawmaker would have prompted him to ask his supervisor whether “a different process” was required.
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