Senate records show Jack Smith’s team gathered personal and credit card data on at least 639,000 Republican donors and voters while it probed the 2020 election.
Story Highlights
- On Wednesday, October 14, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley released a memo saying Smith’s office obtained spreadsheets on “over 639,000 individuals, at minimum.”
- More than 148,000 rows are labeled as donors, and most gave small amounts, according to the memo.
- The files list names, birth dates, home addresses, emails, employers and credit card information.
- Grassley says the records also show who bought red MAGA hats and where the hats were shipped.
Grassley Says Smith’s Team Swept Up Data on 639,000 People
Jack Smith is the former special counsel who led the federal criminal cases against President Trump. A special counsel is a prosecutor picked to run a case on his own, apart from the regular Justice Department chain of command. Smith’s team collected the data as part of his probe into Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That probe was known inside the FBI by the code name “Arctic Frost.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, laid out the findings in a memo to committee Republicans released Wednesday, October 14. He said Smith’s office and the Biden Justice Department “obtained spreadsheets” on Republican donors, supporters and voters “totaling over 639,000 individuals, at minimum.” He said the records reached his committee in answer to his own subpoenas, which are legal orders that require a person or company to hand over records.
What Kind of Information Was Collected
According to the memo, the spreadsheets listed names, dates of birth, home and email addresses, occupations and employers. They noted whether each person was a registered Republican. They also held credit card information, donation amounts and what the memo calls donor analysis data. Sample entries included retirees, pool technicians, drivers and loggers.
Grassley said more than 148,000 of the rows are labeled as donors. “The donors generally contributed small dollar amounts,” he wrote. Small-dollar donors are everyday supporters who give modest sums, often $20 or $50 at a time. The data runs from 2005 to 2021, according to the memo, which Grassley called “well outside Smith’s scope of purported review.”
The memo also says the records included “sales of red MAGA hats, including individual buyers, their purchases and their shipping addresses for home delivery.” For a supporter who ordered a hat online, that means a federal prosecutor’s files could hold the order and the home address it went to.
What Smith Said Under Oath
Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, September 29. Grassley asked him for a yes-or-no answer on whether his team gathered donor data. Smith answered, “Yes.” He added, “We acquired financial information.” He said he could not recite every subpoena from memory, that his probe concerned “one of the most serious crimes” in the nation’s history, and that “I had a duty to collect facts.”
Smith’s new law firm was asked to comment on the October 14 memo. No reply had been reported as of Thursday, October 15. Before the memo, Grassley released records in September showing Smith’s team gathered bank information on checks written by nearly 5,000 Americans who gave to Trump and allied Republican groups. In March, Grassley said Smith’s team issued 197 subpoenas seeking financial information on more than 400 Republican groups and people.
Why Donor Privacy Matters
Grassley called the files “incredibly invasive donor data” and voter data “beyond what could conceivably be necessary” for Smith’s job. He said the evidence shows “that the Special Counsel operation was designed to map out the Republican Party.”
The Supreme Court has long protected the privacy of people who give to political causes. In 2021, the Court struck down a California rule that forced charities to turn over the names and addresses of major donors. The justices said exposing donors can scare people away from supporting causes they believe in. That is the core worry for the retiree who sent $20 or bought a hat: a gift to a cause should not land a person’s home address in a federal prosecutor’s files.
What Comes Next
Grassley has released Arctic Frost records in stages through 2026, drawn from files turned over by the Justice Department and private companies, and the October 14 memo is the latest in that series. He has said the donor files go far past what Smith’s mandate required, and he has called on committee Democrats to help hold Smith to account.
For conservatives, the stakes are basic freedoms. Protecting donor privacy protects the person who gives twenty dollars, not only the big names. Grassley’s findings put Congress on notice that political data is powerful and must be handled with strict care, and that no probe should come at the cost of Americans’ First Amendment rights.
Sources:
grassley.senate.gov, lifezette.com
