Rep Brandon Gill GRILLS Jack Smith over subpoenaing Kevin McCarthy's phone records for J6 investigation

In a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, former Biden administration special counsel Jack Smith was grilled about his subpoenaing of the toll records of members of Congress, with Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) focusing in on Smith’s seeking of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s phone records as part of the investigation into the events of January 6.

Gill asked Smith, "Mr. Smith, in January of 2023, did you subpoena then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy's toll records?" Smith replied that he did. Gill added, "the subpoena covered the time period between November 2020 and January 2021," with Smith cutting off Gill, asking for him to repeat what he was saying. Toll records show information such as the phone numbers called and the time and duration of calls, but not the content.

"We’re not going to delay like this," Gill replied. "The subpoena covered the time period between November 2020 and January 2021. How many days after Kevin McCarthy was sworn in as speaker did you subpoena his records?" Smith said he could not recall.

"It was 16 days after becoming the highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, you subpoenaed his toll records," said Gill. "Do you agree that that might reasonably be considered a violation of the Speech or Debate Clause?" Smith said he did not.

Gill continued, "you were collecting months’ worth of phone data on the Republican Speaker of the House, the leader of the opposition, right after he got sworn in as Speaker, all around the time of a major vote. That sounds like a flagrant violation of the Speech or Debate Clause to me, and I think most people agree with me, and Speaker McCarthy had no recourse, did he? Because you issued a non-disclosure order ensuring that neither he nor any of the American people knew about these subpoenas. Is that right?"

Smith said that his office did obtain non-disclosure orders for the "non-content toll record subpoenas." Gill asked whether Smith thought McCarthy was a "flight risk" at the time the non-disclosure order was obtained," to which Smith replied, "he was not."

"Then why did your non-disclosure order refer to him as a flight risk," Gill asked, before reading from a court document, "It says right here, 'the court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in flight from prosecution."

Smith said that with a non-disclosure order, "The risks aren't necessarily associated with this subscriber to the phone. The risks are to the investigation." Gill replied, "I think that you were using—this was clearly in reference to Speaker McCarthy, and you were using clearly false information to secure a non-disclosure order to hide from Speaker McCarthy and from the American people the fact that you were spying on his toll records."

During the hearing, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) revealed that he had found out just weeks prior to the hearing that his phone records had also been subpoenaed by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice. Roy confronted Smith, asking him if he had subpoenaed those records. Smith said that they were subpoenaed prior to him being appointed as special counsel. Roy said that he had been subpoenaed in May of 2022 because he had been in contact with fellow Rep Scott Perry, but he "couldn’t object because I didn’t know."

Phone records had also been sought from GOP lawmakers Mike Kelly, Lindsey Graham, Bill Hagerty, Josh Hawley, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Lummis, and Marsha Blackburn.