The Senate Judiciary Committee is expanding its investigation into former Special Counsel Jack Smith's handling of phone records tied to Republican lawmakers, with committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and 15 colleagues now demanding answers from Verizon about what the company knew regarding subpoenas for senators' toll records.
Grassley and the group sent a letter Thursday to Verizon CEO Daniel Schulman questioning how the telecom giant handled a May 25, 2023 subpoena issued as part of Operation Arctic Frost — the codename for the FBI's Trump-election-interference probe. The senators want to know what Verizon officials knew about the subpoenas, when they learned members' records were swept up in the investigation and why the company failed to disclose the subpoena during an earlier congressional records search.
Verizon later acknowledged omitting Smith's subpoena from its response to a congressional inquiry, attributing the oversight to "human error." The disclosure came in 2025, years after the initial subpoenas were issued. The dispute centers on whether Verizon discovered the subpoena and failed to report it or simply missed it during routine records searches.
What the Right Is Saying
Grassley and Republican signatories to the Thursday letter said the episode represents a fundamental overreach by federal law enforcement into legislative branch affairs. The senators noted that Smith's investigation swept up records from "hundreds of Republican entities," including the late Charlie Kirk, along with phone toll records and text messages from multiple Republican senators.
"Jack Smith oversaw a sweeping and unprecedented investigation that swept-up records from hundreds of Republican entities, including the phone toll records and text messages from myself and dozens of my colleagues," Grassley told Fox News Digital. "Congress deserves to know the full picture of how Smith carried out Arctic Frost so it never happens again."
Other signatories included Sens. Bill Hagerty IV and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Rick Scott of Florida; Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Mike Lee of Utah; Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; John Cornyn of Texas; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; and Senate Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
The Republican lawmakers are specifically demanding that Verizon explain when executives first learned about the May 2023 subpoena and when they discovered it had provided "tolling data" connected to affected members. The letter asks for internal records from May 2023 through October 2025 discussing whether the company believed it was obligated to notify implicated senators.
What the Left Is Saying
Democrats have largely remained quiet on the Senate's inquiry into Verizon's handling of the matter. When reached for comment by other outlets, some Democratic members noted that toll records — which include phone numbers, call dates, times, duration and cell tower locations but not conversation content — are metadata subject to legal subpoenas in investigations involving potential threats to election integrity.
A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats were reviewing the Grassley letter but had no immediate comment on whether they supported expanding oversight of Smith's investigation or Verizon's compliance procedures. Other Democratic offices did not respond to requests for comment.
Some progressive legal observers have pointed out that while the collection of lawmakers' records raises legitimate privacy questions, the underlying investigation into events surrounding the 2020 election involved serious allegations requiring thorough examination. These voices argue that congressional oversight should focus on improving subpoena notification processes rather than relitigating the merits of the original probe.
What the Numbers Show
The scope of Smith's investigation included subpoenas targeting multiple phone carriers for toll records tied to Republican lawmakers and conservative figures. According to Grassley's Thursday letter, the May 25, 2023 subpoena sought records from Verizon and other carriers related to Operation Arctic Frost.
Verizon's October 2023 response to an earlier Grassley inquiry stated that the company often limits retention of legal processes received to a four-year period and attested it had no responsive records prior to October 2019. The company's subsequent acknowledgment that human error caused its omission raises questions about whether federal investigators' requests were properly logged in the carrier's internal systems.
The senators noted that Smith asked Verizon in October 2023 to identify Justice Department or other federal law enforcement requests involving Senate devices used by his staff dating back to 2016 — a request spanning at least seven years of records. The scope of affected Republican entities reportedly numbered in the hundreds, according to Grassley's description of the probe.
The Bottom Line
The Senate Judiciary Committee's inquiry into Verizon's subpoena handling represents an escalation of congressional scrutiny over Smith's conduct during his tenure as special counsel. The company has not yet publicly responded to the senators' request for internal communications and executive briefings on when officials learned about the May 2023 subpoena.
Verizon has a legal obligation under certain federal regulations to notify customers when their information has been subject to government requests, though the specifics of those requirements depend on the type of legal process involved. The company faces an August deadline to produce the requested internal records and schedule briefings with Grassley and the other signatories.
What remains unclear is whether any laws were broken in how Verizon handled or disclosed the subpoenas, or if the company's failure rises only to the level of administrative error. Congressional investigators are expected to use the forthcoming documents to determine whether Smith or his prosecutors violated any statutes governing how federal agencies may collect information on members of Congress.