{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2026/07/14/chairmen-johnson-grassley-release-records-showing-jack-smiths-investigative-team-secretly-obtained-text-messages-from-44-members-of-congress-amid-trump-probe/", "Chairmen Johnson, Grassley Release Records Showing Jack Smith\u2019s Investigative Team Secretly Obtained Text Messages from 44 Members of Congress Amid Trump\u00a0Probe", "2026-07-14", "2026", "2026-07", "Republican", "Senate", "WI", "Ron Johnson", "J000293", "www.ronjohnson.senate.gov", "ronjohnson", "https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s investigative team obtained and reviewed text messages from White House personnel, including messages to and from 44 Members of Congress, as part of the Biden Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) criminal investigation into President Trump. Evidence shows the investigators bypassed a required Filter Team review process, violating investigative protocols.\n\nThe bombshell discovery comes in new records released today by Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) as part of their ongoing Arctic Frost oversight. Johnson and Grassley requested the records from DOJ after receiving legally protected whistleblower disclosures.\n\nThe Justice Department\u2019s letter to the chairmen and the provided records indicate Smith\u2019s investigative team circumvented its own filter review process, which was established to protect privileged materials from being swept up in a criminal prosecution, and directly accessed the content of texts sent by Republican and Democrat senators and members of the House of Representatives to White House officials during Trump\u2019s first term. Bypassing a Filter Team evades consideration of additional privileges, such as attorney-client privilege.\n\nBoth Johnson and Grassley\u2019s text messages were obtained by Smith\u2019s team.\n\n\u201cThis is yet another grotesque example of the Biden administration\u2019s weaponization of the Justice Department,\u201d Sen. Johnson said. \u201cJack Smith\u2019s team acted with impunity as they disregarded their own protocols to obtain and access White House text messages, including messages to and from 44 Members of Congress. At this point, no one should be shocked by Jack Smith\u2019s recklessness and blatant abuse of power, but they should be outraged.\u201d\n\n\u201cJack Smith\u2019s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes. Based on the information that\u2019s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government\u2019s investigation, \u201dSen. Grassley said. \u201cI hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions. Smith\u2019s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings. Jack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable.\u201d\n\nRead DOJ\u2019s summary of the records here and access the records here.\n\nBackground:\n\nThe records, as summarized in a DOJ cover letter, provide evidence the Biden Justice Department \u201cestablished a Filter Team to evaluate materials obtained in the course of both Jack Smith\u2019s investigation relating to January 6 (referred to as \u2018Project Coconut\u2019) and his Mar-a-Lago documents investigation (referred to as \u2018Project Cranberry\u2019). The Filter Team\u2019s purpose was to prevent investigators from the Special Counsel\u2019s Office and the FBI (\u2018Investigative Team\u2019) from accessing privileged materials among the records obtained during the course of these investigations.\u201d The DOJ letter further states \u201cthe Special Counsel\u2019s Investigative Team apparently bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages,\u201d in reference to Members\u2019 communications.\n\nIn June 2023, the Special Counsel\u2019s Office (SCO) subpoenaed the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to provide all text messages from October 2020 through January 20, 2021, from phones associated with a long list of personnel serving in the White House during President Trump\u2019s first term, including Trump himself as well as: Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, John Ratcliffe, Kash Patel, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway and Mike Pence.\n\nNARA provided the texts to SCO on August 21, 2023. Within half an hour, one of Smith\u2019s senior lawyers, Thomas Windom, downloaded the texts and, within one hour, other members of Smith\u2019s investigative team downloaded and began reviewing the texts. It appears the review was done without waiting for the Filter Team to evaluate and segregate privileged information.\n\nSmith\u2019s team accessed texts to and from the following current and former senators and members of the House of Representatives:\n\n1. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)\n\n2. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)\n\n3. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)\n\n4. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)\n\n5. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)\n\n6. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)\n\n7. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.)\n\n8. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.)\n\n9. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska)\n\n10. Senator David Perdue (R-Ga.)\n\n11. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)\n\n12. Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.)\n\n13. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.)\n\n14. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.)\n\n15. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio)\n\n16. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)\n\n17. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)\n\n18. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.)\n\n19. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)\n\n20. Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)\n\n21. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)\n\n22. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.)\n\n23. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)\n\n24. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)\n\n25. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.)\n\n26. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)\n\n27. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.)\n\n28. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.)\n\n29. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)\n\n30. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.)\n\n31. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.)\n\n32. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)\n\n33. Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.)\n\n34. Rep. Joshua Gottheimer (D-N.J.)\n\n35. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.)\n\n36. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)\n\n37. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)\n\n38. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)\n\n39. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)\n\n40. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)\n\n41. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.)\n\n42. Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)\n\n43. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)\n\n44. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-15T07:12:08Z", "2026-07-15T07:13:45Z"]], "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.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2026/07/14/chairmen-johnson-grassley-release-records-showing-jack-smiths-investigative-team-secretly-obtained-text-messages-from-44-members-of-congress-amid-trump-probe/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4965448062866926, "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"}