Republican senators pressed lawyers for Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday over the companies’ handling of subpoenas from special counsel Jack Smith’s office seeking phone toll records connected to congressional Republicans during the Justice Department’s 2020 election interference investigation.
Privacy and separation-of-powers concerns dominated a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday as Republican lawmakers questioned Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile about their responses to subpoenas from special counsel Jack Smith’s office for phone toll records tied to members of Congress.
The hearing — held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law — was prompted by disclosures that Smith’s team obtained call-detail records for 20 current or former Republican members of Congress as investigators examined contacts between then-President Donald Trump and allies on Capitol Hill around Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump sought to halt certification of his 2020 election loss. The toll records reflected when calls were placed and their duration, not the content of the conversations.
Several Republicans whose records were sought argued the subpoenas intruded on lawmakers’ constitutional protections, including the Speech or Debate Clause. Democrats on the panel and witnesses aligned with them countered that the tactic is common in criminal investigations and was appropriate given the violence of Jan. 6 and the centrality of communications between Trump and lawmakers to the inquiry.
Chris Miller, a senior vice president and general counsel for Verizon’s consumer group, told senators that the subpoenas Verizon received identified phone numbers but did not include names or other information showing the lines belonged to members of Congress. He said the company was barred from notifying affected customers by court-issued non-disclosure orders and that Verizon complied because it was “compelled” by law. At the same time, he acknowledged the company’s processes “could have been better” for what he described as a novel situation.
AT&T’s senior executive vice president and general counsel, David McAtee, testified that the company produced records in response to two subpoenas in January 2023 for a personal account belonging to a sitting member of Congress because the requests provided only a phone number and gave no indication the account was linked to a lawmaker. In a separate instance, McAtee said AT&T’s legal team sought clarification from Smith’s office about how the Speech or Debate Clause might apply; he said the special counsel’s office did not provide a substantive response and ultimately did not pursue the subpoena further, so no records were produced in that case.
A T-Mobile representative told lawmakers that none of the subpoenas it handled sought records from Senate business lines.
Smith has previously defended the approach, telling lawmakers in a private deposition in December that investigators would have sought the same type of toll records regardless of party if calls had involved Democratic senators.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to federal charges brought by Smith related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
