Lawyers for Jack Smith rebut claims that investigators ‘wiretapped’ GOP members of Congress in January 6 probe
By Evan Perez, CNN
(CNN) — Attorneys for former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith rebutted claims by Republican lawmakers that investigators in the January 6 election subversion case had “wiretapped” GOP members of Congress.
Senate Republicans in recent weeks accused Smith and the FBI of “political weaponization” after the FBI disclosed 2023 court orders used to obtain phone toll records belonging to eight senators and one House member. The records covered calls over four days surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack by Donald Trump supporters on the Capitol.
The toll records do not include content, but detail time and length of calls and the telephone numbers with which the lawmakers communicated, and are a routine part of Justice Department investigations.
In a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his Democratic counterpart, Dick Durbin, Smith’s lawyers dispute that there was any political motive in obtaining the records, which they note were disclosed in the 2024 indictment of Trump and in Smith’s report on his investigation.
“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,” reads the letter from Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski, which was reviewed by CNN.
“The subpoena’s limited temporal range is consistent with a focused effort to confirm or refute reports by multiple news outlets that during and after the January 6 riots at the Capitol, President Trump and his surrogates attempted to call Senators to urge them to delay the certification of the 2020 election results.”
The Smith attorneys note that toll records of then-President Joe Biden were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur in the probe of his mishandling of classified documents, and in the investigation of Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who was convicted on bribery and foreign influence charges.
“Mr. Smith’s use of the toll records as Special Counsel was lawful and in accordance with normal investigative procedure,” the letter from Smith’s attorneys says.
Republican senators raised the disclosure of the toll records during a recent Senate hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi. During the same hearing, Democrats asked about possible political motives of the recent indictments brought against Trump’s perceived political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey.
The-CNN-Wire
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