Jack Smith Team Accessed 44 Lawmakers' Texts, Grassley Says

Former special counsel Jack Smith's investigative team accessed text messages from 44 members of Congress, bypassing Justice Department privilege safeguards, according to DOJ records released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on July 14, 2026. ZeroHedge reported that Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis confirmed Smith's team "bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages," then had the FBI match phone numbers to lawmakers' names. The messages, sent between October 2020 and January 20, 2021, involved a bipartisan roster of lawmakers and Trump White House officials including Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, now-CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and now-FBI Director Kash Patel.

Key takeaways
Jack Smith's team accessed text message content from 44 members of Congress by bypassing DOJ filter protocols designed to screen for privileged material, according to records released by Sen. Chuck Grassley.
The messages, sent between October 2020 and January 20, 2021, involved lawmakers from both parties and Trump White House officials, including Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, John Ratcliffe, and Kash Patel.
Smith testified under oath in December 2025 that his office obtained only toll records from members of Congress, not text message content, according to the House Judiciary Committee deposition transcript.
Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson characterized the disclosure as evidence of constitutional overreach, while Smith has previously defended his team's phone record collection as lawful and consistent with prior special counsel practices.

Table of Contents
What the records confirmed
Filter team protocols and bypass allegations
Lawmakers affected and White House contacts
Smith's December 2025 testimony
Political context and prior phone record disputes
What to watch next

What the records confirmed

Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis told Sen. Chuck Grassley in a letter accompanying the DOJ records that Jack Smith's team "bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages," according to ZeroHedge. The FBI then worked out which senators and House members had sent or received the messages, Davis wrote. The filter unit existed to screen messages pulled from the National Archives for privileged material before line investigators reviewed them, according to internal protocol documents cited in the source context.

An internal DOJ email dated August 21, 2023, shows Smith's team discussing "54 excel files with text messages from White House phones" being loaded into a shared drive, according to the source context. The material was gathered under the codenames "Project Coconut," the election-interference probe, and "Project Cranberry," the Mar-a-Lago documents case. The messages ran between a bipartisan roster of lawmakers and Trump White House figures, the records show.

Filter team protocols and bypass allegations

The filter unit's internal protocol document states that "all communication to/from the Filter Team must go through the Coordinator," adding that nothing was to reach the investigative team without a filter attorney's sign-off, according to ZeroHedge. The filter team was designed to screen messages for privileged material before line investigators accessed them. Davis's letter confirmed that Smith's team bypassed this process and directly accessed the text messages.

Grassley said on July 14, 2026, that Jack Smith's criminal investigation of President Trump "was a runaway train that had no brakes," charging that investigators reviewed messages from dozens of lawmakers "outside the scope of the government's investigation" and that Smith's team "ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings." Sen. Ron Johnson called the disclosure "yet another grotesque example" of the Biden-era Justice Department's weaponization, saying no one should be shocked by Smith's "recklessness and blatant abuse of power."

Lawmakers affected and White House contacts

The 44 lawmakers included Grassley himself, Sens. Susan Collins, Tom Cotton, and Cory Booker; House Majority Leader Steve Scalise; Rep. Elise Stefanik; Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee; then-Rep. Karen Bass, now mayor of Los Angeles; and then-Rep. Lee Zeldin, now head of the EPA, according to the source context. The messages were sent between October 2020 and January 20, 2021, and ran between these lawmakers and Trump White House officials including chief of staff Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, now-CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and now-FBI Director Kash Patel.

Grassley announced the records release on social media on July 14, 2026, stating that he received records from DOJ confirming Jack Smith's investigative team reviewed the contents of text messages sent by 44 members of Congress. He noted that he was one of the 44 and said he was alerting his colleagues who were impacted. Grassley said he would release the records with Sen. Johnson so the American people could see the evidence.

Smith's December 2025 testimony

At his December 17, 2025, deposition before the House Judiciary Committee, Smith repeatedly assured lawmakers that his office's reach into Congress stopped at "toll records"—bare logs of who called whom, and when, according to the deposition transcript cited by ZeroHedge. When a committee lawyer asked, "Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from Members?" Smith answered, "No, I don't recall that." When asked, "It was just toll records?" Smith answered, "Correct." Asked separately whether the toll records his office obtained from members of Congress included "the content of text messages," Smith answered flatly: "No."

The source context notes that strictly speaking, those questions concerned records sought directly from lawmakers and their phone carriers, not the White House data Smith's office already held. Nowhere in the 255-page deposition did Smith volunteer that his investigators possessed—and, per the Davis letter, had directly accessed—the actual contents of members' messages, harvested from the other side of the conversation. The committee, unaware of the National Archives trove, never asked. A review of the transcript also found Smith sharpened his sworn answers after the fact. In an errata sheet correcting the record, Smith revised his response on whether any other lawmaker's phone had been seized from "I don't know" to a definitive "I don't—no." Another correction strikes the word "text" from his reference to "text records" that could prove certain Jan. 6 calls happened, leaving just "records."

Political context and prior phone record disputes

Smith has insisted the phone-records furor is overblown, according to ZeroHedge. "Recent narratives about my team's work are false and misleading," he told the committee in his opening statement, stressing that toll records "do not include the content of calls." His attorneys have previously called the collection lawful, noting that special counsel Robert Hur obtained President Biden's toll records, and that the Justice Department under Trump's first term seized phone records of Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, along with those of dozens of congressional staffers.

For readers following broader general market briefs , this development can help frame the wider political and legal context surrounding special counsel investigations and congressional oversight. The July 14, 2026, release caps a months-long drip of Arctic Frost disclosures, according to the source context: 197 subpoenas touching more than 430 Republican individuals and groups; toll records for at least 11 senators and six House members, all shielded by court-approved gag orders; and internal emails showing prosecutors were warned that congressional subpoenas could violate the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause. In one email released this spring, a member of Smith's team wrote that the office was about to "fire off subpoenas for so many members tolls" that Smith himself should be looped in first.

What to watch next

Grassley said on July 14, 2026, that "Jack Smith has answering to do," vowing to haul the former special counsel before the Senate Judiciary Committee "in the coming months." Sen. Rand Paul posted on social media that Smith swore under oath in December 2025 that he didn't spy on text messages belonging to members of Congress, and that new evidence confirms he spied on dozens of members of Congress, calling it "a blatant abuse of power." Sen. Josh Hawley posted that the disclosure "looks like perjury."

Market readers may watch for future Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, additional DOJ record releases, and any formal legal or congressional responses to the allegations. The source context notes that roughly 30 pages of the House Judiciary Committee transcript—including the page carrying Smith's "just toll records" exchange—were inserted as images rather than searchable text, meaning keyword searches of the document skip past them. The committee did not respond to questions about the formatting, according to ZeroHedge.

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