Special Counsel Jack Smith acquired cell phone records from former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy through AT&T while investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
Recently, Fox News reported that Smith had “subpoenaed AT&T on McCarthy’s behalf.” However, AT&T informed Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley that it hadn’t shared any call records of the former Speaker.
Subsequently, the outlet obtained a letter from AT&T to Grassley indicating that McCarthy’s records had indeed been shared with Jack Smith.
On January 24, 2023, Smith allegedly requested “personal cell phone call records of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (AT&T) and U.S. Congressman Louis Gohmert (Verizon).”
This request was part of a “Critical Incident Notice” created by the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division on May 25, 2023.
However, AT&T later informed Grassley that it received a subpoena for McCarthy’s records separately in January 2023, distinct from a May subpoena for other billing records, and there were suspicions of mistakenly providing the personal phone records to Smith.
According to AT&T, the subpoena sought records related to individual phone numbers and didn’t indicate any connection to members of Congress.
“Yesterday, we recognized this mistake based on the phone number cited in the subpoena,” the company stated. “We are writing to amend our previous response following a reasonable review of the current records.”
“AT&T processes a vast number of legal requests annually, but unlike the May 2023 subpoena mentioned in our earlier response, today’s subpoena did not seek campaign account records. Instead, as confirmed by reporters, we were seeking records relevant to individual cell phone numbers, with no connection made to the congressman.”
“As a result, the Subpoena Processing Center concluded there was no connection to the Congressman, so AT&T made no further inquiries with the Special Counsel and provided the requested information.”
In a statement to Fox News, Kevin McCarthy remarked, “Jack Smith broke the law and seized my phone records while I was Speaker of the House.”
He further stressed, “If a corrupt judiciary can do this to the Speaker, they can do it to anyone. The Department of Justice must hold him accountable.”
