Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) demanded Tuesday that everyone involved in what he called an illegal surveillance operation against members of Congress be prosecuted, after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released DOJ records confirming that former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team bypassed constitutional filter review protocols to access text messages sent by 44 members of Congress — including Hawley himself.
“Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone — I just learned they illegally obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” Hawley wrote on X. “Everyone involved needs to be prosecuted.”
The post pointed back to an October 2025 statement Hawley had made on X when he first learned the FBI had obtained metadata and phone records on him and seven other Republican senators as part of what Grassley’s investigation labeled “Arctic Frost.” “This is an abuse of power beyond Watergate, beyond J. Edgar Hoover, one that directly strikes at the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment,” Hawley wrote at the time.
Two Separate Actions — Phone Records and Text Messages
Hawley’s Tuesday post conflates two related but distinct actions that Grassley’s ongoing Arctic Frost oversight has uncovered. The first — the phone record collection — was revealed in October 2025, when Grassley disclosed that the FBI obtained tolling data and metadata on phone calls made by eight Republican senators, including Hawley, for the period of January 4–7, 2021, as part of the broader investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack and alleged fake elector schemes, according to the official Senate Judiciary Committee press release on the phone record disclosure. The senators whose records were obtained were Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Lummis, Bill Hagerty, Dan Sullivan and Tommy Tuberville, along with Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
The second action — the text message disclosure — was revealed Tuesday when Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson released DOJ records showing that Smith’s investigative team obtained and reviewed the content of text messages from 44 members of Congress by subpoenaing the National Archives for White House communications from October 2020 through January 20, 2021, according to the official Senate Judiciary Committee press release. The team bypassed a filter review process specifically designed to screen for materials protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which shields congressional communications related to official legislative duties from executive branch prosecution.
What the Records Show
According to the DOJ letter to Grassley and Johnson and the provided records, Smith’s team received the archived White House text messages from the National Archives on August 21, 2023. Within 30 minutes, senior lawyer Thomas Windom downloaded the texts. Within one hour, other members of Smith’s investigative team had also downloaded and begun reviewing them — apparently without waiting for the Filter Team to evaluate and segregate constitutionally privileged information.
The 44 members whose texts were accessed spanned both parties, including Republicans Hawley, Grassley, Johnson, John Cornyn, the late Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, Rick Scott, Susan Collins and Tom Cotton, as well as Democrats including Cory Booker of New Jersey, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington and Rep. Karen Bass of California, per the full Senate Judiciary Committee list.
The Constitutional Concern
The Speech or Debate Clause — found in Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution — protects members of Congress from criminal prosecution or intimidation by the executive branch for their official legislative activities. The filter review process that Smith’s team bypassed was specifically designed to prevent investigators from accessing constitutionally privileged materials.
“Jack Smith’s criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes,” Grassley said in the official Senate Judiciary Committee release. “Biden DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues who were outside the scope of the government’s investigation. I hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions.”
Hawley’s October 2025 Statement in Full Context
When Hawley learned about the phone record collection in October 2025, he described it as part of a broader Biden-era pattern of what he called the weaponization of federal law enforcement. “Biden’s Stasi who claimed to be saving ‘our sacred democracy’ in fact worked overtime to destroy it — all for power,” Hawley wrote on X. “They spied on Catholic churches, prosecuted pro-lifers, deployed the FBI against parents at school board meetings — and tried to tap the phones of their political enemies. Including mine.”
Hawley called for a “full investigation of all involved — who knew about it, who ordered it, and who approved it,” adding that “anyone and everyone who violated the law must be prosecuted.” His Tuesday post brought that call forward in light of the new text message disclosure, demanding prosecution specifically of those involved in obtaining his communications with Trump administration officials.
Smith’s Office Has Closed — But the Legal Questions Remain
Smith’s office was closed after Trump won the 2024 election and the federal criminal cases against him were dismissed. Smith has not publicly commented on the Grassley-Johnson disclosure. The DOJ under Attorney General Pam Bondi provided the records to Grassley and Johnson without issuing its own public statement beyond the letter transmitted to the senators, per the DOJ letter released by Grassley.
Grassley said he intends to bring Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer for the conduct, and both he and Johnson said they are releasing the records publicly so “the American people can see the evidence,” per Grassley’s X post announcing the release. The full Arctic Frost investigation record — including subpoenas, DOJ correspondence and the filter review documents — is available on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Arctic Frost oversight hub.
Whether the conduct of Smith’s investigators violated the Speech or Debate Clause — and whether it could give rise to civil or criminal liability — depends on whether the specific texts reviewed pertained to the members’ official legislative activities, a legal question that would ultimately require judicial resolution. What Tuesday’s disclosure confirms is that the filter process specifically designed to make that determination was bypassed before anyone made that call.