When government overreach hits close to home, even lawmakers aren’t spared from the crosshairs.
On Jan. 22, 2026, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, confronted former special counsel Jack Smith during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington that lasted over five hours. Roy challenged Smith after learning his phone records were among more than a dozen seized in a probe tied to 2020 election interference. Smith stated that the subpoenas, which targeted call metadata between January 4 and 7, 2021, aligned with Department of Justice policy, although he noted that the policy has since changed. Meanwhile, Republicans raised concerns over the targeting of sitting lawmakers.
The issue has sparked heated debate over the boundaries of investigative power and the protection of constitutional rights. While Smith maintained his efforts were free of partisan bias, many on the right see a troubling pattern of overreach.
According to the New York Post, Roy revealed he only discovered a few weeks prior that his records, sought in May 2022, had been handed over to the Department of Justice. He displayed an internal email on a hearing room TV, confirming the transfer after consulting with AT&T. He noted he had been in touch with Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., one of at least 14 Republicans whose call logs were subpoenaed.
“Did you target my records and subpoena my phone?” Roy demanded of Smith during the hearing. That question cuts to the heart of a larger grievance: why were sitting lawmakers kept in the dark about such intrusive actions? It’s hard to see this as anything but a violation of trust between branches of government.
Smith responded coolly, saying Roy’s records were obtained before he took over as special counsel. That explanation might deflect personal responsibility, but it doesn’t erase the fact that his team later sought more records in May 2023 under the same questionable pretext. The FBI’s Arctic Frost probe, which started over a year after the January 2021 Capitol riot, laid the groundwork for this surveillance.
“We had evidence that the president had directed Rudy Giuliani, one of his co-conspirators, to contact members of Congress,” Smith testified, explaining the focus on delaying certification proceedings. Yet, pinning such a wide net on vague connections to Giuliani feels like a stretch, especially when it ensnares lawmakers like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., without their knowledge.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has called the subpoenas akin to a broad fishing expedition. Files from whistleblowers obtained in October revealed to Grassley a mechanism for what he saw as improper probing of Republican figures. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, went further, labeling the disclosures a major scandal tied to the current administration.
On a subsequent Thursday hearing, several House Republicans accused Smith of breaching the Constitution’s Speech and Debate clause by accessing lawmakers’ contact details. Even four former police officers who defended the Capitol in January 2021 confronted GOP lawmakers at that session. The timing, just before and after the Capitol breach, was the stated focus of many subpoenas.
Democrats, led by Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., dismissed claims of illegality in the subpoenas. They pointed fingers at the Senate for failing to pass Judiciary Committee bills curbing such authority. Meanwhile, the House voted unanimously that day to prevent senators from suing the Department of Justice for up to $500,000 in the future.
Questions also swirled around why the National Guard wasn’t swiftly deployed during the riot and whether the Biden administration exerted pressure to prosecute certain figures. Smith’s inability to recall who swore him into office—later ruled unlawful by a federal judge—only fuels skepticism about his operation’s legitimacy.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, didn’t rule out a second hearing with Smith, while noting evidence of a $20,000 payment to a confidential informant. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., highlighted Smith’s past, pointing to the Supreme Court overturning bribery charges against a former Republican governor. Judiciary Democrats, however, pushed for Smith’s return to discuss a separate indictment tied to classified documents.
Smith’s defense of gag orders and his note that the 2020 election interference case could be refiled after a dismissal without prejudice raise alarms about ongoing legal pursuits. On Truth Social, a sharp response came from the former president, decrying Smith’s actions as destructive to innocent lives. The hidden nature of these subpoenas, filed under non-disclosure orders, only deepens the sense of unease. When Roy couldn’t object because he was unaware until recently, it suggests a system more interested in secrecy than accountability.
Ultimately, this hearing lays bare a clash between investigative necessity and the rights of elected officials. If unchecked, such actions risk turning the Department of Justice into a tool for political targeting, a far cry from its intended purpose. Americans deserve a government that respects boundaries, not one that snoops in shadows.