Smith Sought Years of Kash Patel Phone Records in Trump Probe, Documents Show
Former special counsel Jack Smith sought more than two years of phone records for now-FBI Director Kash Patel while investigating President Trump, according to documents released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Subpoenas show Smith’s team asked Verizon for Patel’s records from October 2020 through February 2023. Patel revealed them in February, calling them “outrageous and deeply alarming.” The period spans his time in the Trump administration from 2019 to January 2021 and his later role as a private citizen and Trump ally.
The subpoenas included one-year, court-approved gag orders preventing Verizon from notifying Patel. Such subpoenas are common and typically cover toll records, showing who communicated with whom and when, but not the content of messages.
Sen. Grassley released the documents before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Arctic Frost, the FBI investigation that led to Smith prosecuting Trump over the 2020 election. Patel was also a known witness in a separate FBI probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents, and it is unclear which investigation the subpoenas were tied to.
At the hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, echoed Republican criticism of the Biden Justice Department, saying the probes targeted hundreds of Republican individuals and entities and calling Arctic Frost a “modern Watergate” involving about 100,000 private communications, more than a dozen senators, and thousands of individuals.
Smith, appointed in November 2022 and resigned when Trump took office, has testified before Congress and defended his work as by the book and apolitical.
The documents also include briefing materials for Attorney General Merrick Garland stating the FBI investigation was “going well,” noting meetings among senior FBI and DOJ officials and federal judges in Washington, D.C., and that Smith relied in part on work by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 Committee.
