Former Special Counsel Jack Smith was asked a direct question under oath: did you request toll records from members of Congress that included the content of their text messages? His answer was one word. "No."
That answer, according to new findings from the Senate Judiciary Committee, appears to be a lie.
The committee's investigation has uncovered evidence that Smith's office accessed the private text messages of 44 individual lawmakers during the course of his sprawling probe into January 6, 2021 and related matters. Communications from sitting members of Congress — communications that are explicitly protected under Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, the Speech or Debate Clause.
Smith's office didn't just peek at a few records. According to sources, his team issued more than 200 subpoenas, targeting over 400 Republican personalities and groups, including more than 160 Republicans with connections to Donald Trump. Eight Republican senators and at least one GOP House member were swept into the dragnet. Organizations like Save America PAC, Turning Point USA, the Republican Attorneys General Association, America First Policy Institute, Conservative Partnership Institute, and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. all found out their messages had been accessed without their consent.
The investigation, internally codenamed "Arctic Frost" — which sounds like a rejected Bond villain but operated like one — was supposed to have a Filter Team responsible for evaluating and segregating privileged information. That team, according to the committee's findings, was bypassed.
Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee, didn't mince words. "Under 18 USC § 1001, knowingly making false statements to Congress is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. It looks like that's exactly what Jack Smith did," Schmitt said. He followed up even more bluntly: "Jack Smith should be subject to prosecution for lying to Congress.
And he's not the only one. The calls to investigate and possibly prosecute Jack Smith are growing as more and more Congresspeople and conservative organizations become aware of what Smith did to them. Senator Josh Hawley, also of Missouri, kept it shorter. "Looks like perjury," he said.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was asked whether the department takes such testimony seriously. "We take testimony in front of this body very seriously, yes," Blanche responded — a statement that, in Washington, passes for a neon sign pointing at a criminal referral.
The broader timeline makes this worse, not better. Smith was appointed special counsel in November 2022, months after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in August of that year. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released documents in September 2024 showing the FBI had sought senators' phone data as far back as 2023. The Arctic Frost codename appeared in documents dating to January 2023. Grassley compared the scope of the surveillance to Watergate when he released the findings in October 2025.
Smith resigned after Trump's 2024 election victory. His December 2025 testimony to Congress was supposed to be the final accounting.
The defense you'd expect — that the records were gathered incidentally, that no content was reviewed, that procedures were followed — runs directly into the committee's evidence that the Filter Team was sidelined and that 44 lawmakers' actual text messages were accessed. The Speech or Debate Clause exists precisely to prevent the executive branch from using law enforcement tools to surveil the legislature. It's not a suggestion. It's a constitutional firewall.
Smith's probe didn't begin and end with Trump. It stretched from what the committee traced as related efforts under codenames like Crossfire Hurricane, Round River, and Plasmic Echo — a constellation of investigations running from the summer of 2016 through January 2025. Nearly a decade of federal law enforcement resources aimed in one political direction, overseen by officials including former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and former FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The man tasked with investigating whether anyone obstructed justice appears to have obstructed Congress. The man who pursued charges over classified documents appears to have violated constitutional protections on legislative communications. The man who issued 200 subpoenas now faces calls to be on the receiving end of one.
Five years is the maximum sentence for lying to Congress under 18 USC § 1001. That's the same body of law Smith used to build cases against others.
