Senate Records: Jack Smith Team Bypassed Safeguards, Accessed Texts Involving 44 Members of Congress

Key Facts

Published: July 15, 2026 Location: Washington D.C. Source: U.S. Department of Justice letter to Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley; Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations; Senate Judiciary Committee; National Archives records released by the committees.

• Smith’s team apparently bypassed a required Filter Team and directly accessed White House text-message files that had not been screened for privileged material.
• Communications involving 44 Republican and Democratic lawmakers were obtained, including messages involving Grassley, Johnson, Booker, Jordan, Stefanik and Massie.
• DOJ attorneys had previously warned of Speech or Debate Clause concerns, but the records were nevertheless downloaded and reviewed within minutes of their release.

DOJ documents raise new constitutional concerns over the scope and conduct of the Arctic Frost investigation

by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief

(Worthy News) – Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigative team obtained and directly reviewed White House text messages involving 44 current and former members of Congress after apparently bypassing safeguards designed to protect privileged communications, newly released Justice Department records show.

The documents were released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., as part of their continuing oversight of the Biden-era investigation known as Arctic Frost.

According to a Justice Department letter accompanying the records, a separate “Filter Team” had been established to examine potentially privileged evidence before it could be viewed by Smith’s prosecutors and FBI investigators. Internal instructions stated that no material was to be disclosed to the investigative team without approval from a Filter Team attorney.

However, the department said Smith’s investigative team “apparently bypassed” that process when it obtained 54 spreadsheets containing text messages from phones used by Trump administration White House personnel.

Records Were Reviewed Within Minutes

The records show that National Archives General Counsel Gary Stern notified senior Smith prosecutor Thomas Windom at 12:19 p.m. on Aug. 21, 2023, that the text-message files were being produced.

By 12:45 p.m., Windom had downloaded the spreadsheets and directed other investigative team members to do the same. At 1:02 p.m. — just 43 minutes after the initial notice — he was already circulating selected text messages to colleagues, according to the DOJ account.

The files were subsequently stored on the Special Counsel team’s shared drive rather than first being screened and segregated by the Filter Team.

The Justice Department said the communications included messages between White House officials and 44 lawmakers from both parties. Among them were Grassley, Johnson, Sens. John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Mike Lee, Cory Booker, Rand Paul, Rick Scott, Susan Collins, Tim Scott and Tom Cotton.

House members whose communications were obtained included Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Adam Smith, Elise Stefanik, Josh Gottheimer, Karen Bass, Scott Perry and Thomas Massie.

The records do not establish that the members of Congress themselves were investigation targets. Their messages were captured through communications with White House personnel whose government-issued devices had been requested from the National Archives.

DOJ Had Already Been Warned About Constitutional Risks

The newly released documents show that Smith’s office had been warned months earlier that collecting congressional communications could implicate the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which protects legitimate legislative activity from executive-branch intrusion.

A Justice Department Public Integrity Section attorney warned Windom in May 2023 that obtaining lawmakers’ telephone records posed litigation risks and that legislative communications could be protected from compelled disclosure. Despite that warning, Smith’s team later sought the White House text messages and accessed them without the required preliminary review, according to the department’s findings.

Grassley said investigators appeared to have ignored “routine investigative protocols” and swept up work-related communications from lawmakers who were outside the scope of the Trump investigation.

“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley said, adding that he intends to bring Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee “in the coming months” to answer questions about the investigation.

Johnson called the disclosure another example of the Biden administration’s “weaponization of the Justice Department,” accusing Smith’s team of disregarding its own safeguards while accessing congressional communications.

The findings deepen questions surrounding Arctic Frost, the investigation that ultimately formed the basis of Smith’s federal election-related prosecution of President Donald Trump. They also raise a broader concern extending beyond partisan politics: whether federal prosecutors can obtain and examine lawmakers’ communications without respecting the constitutional boundaries separating Congress from the executive branch.

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