{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/breaking-jack-smiths-team-collected-checks-from-nearly-5000-americans-in-all-50-states", "BREAKING: Jack Smith\u2019s Team Collected Checks from Nearly 5,000 Americans in All 50 States", "2026-09-29", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "IA", "Chuck Grassley", "G000386", "www.grassley.senate.gov", "grassley", "https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Thousands of Americans across all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, who donated as little as $1 to President Trump and Trump-aligned Republican entities had their checks secretly subpoenaed by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team.\n\nRecords provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) via legally protected whistleblower disclosures reveal Smith\u2019s team acquired at least 4,782 checks from Americans who made mainly small-dollar donations to President Trump between September 2019 to August 2023. The checks reveal the donors\u2019 home addresses, bank account and routing numbers, and signatures.\n\nSmith\u2019s team acquired the checks as part of its \u201cArctic Frost\u201d election case against President Trump, allowing the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to gain access to nearly 5,000 Americans\u2019 highly sensitive information, including 42 Iowans. There may be additional subpoena returns that include more donor checks.\n\nWhistleblower records show the checks were routed to former FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina.\n\nGrassley confronted Smith about this massive violation of privacy during today\u2019s Judiciary hearing:\n\n\u201cNo matter what you say, there\u2019s no legitimate basis for what you did. Especially since your staff killed an investigation into the Clinton campaign. Donations to Republican groups wasn\u2019t necessary to your investigation, which is proved out by the fact it wasn\u2019t mentioned in your public report. Now, the Justice Department and FBI will forever possess thousands of people\u2019s addresses, phone numbers, banks, bank account numbers, bank routing numbers and copies of their true signatures. Every member on this committee ought to be outraged for what happened to their constituents. Which one of my Democratic colleagues will join me in that outrage?\u201d\n\nRedacted copies of all 4,782 personal checks whistleblowers provided to Grassley are available HERE.", 1, "2026-09-30T10:57:52Z", "2026-09-30T10:59:04Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/breaking-jack-smiths-team-collected-checks-from-nearly-5000-americans-in-all-50-states"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.444276887923479, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}