Author: Jana Winter
WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) – A special prosecutor began an investigation into now-FBI Director Kash Patel, then a private citizen, in 2022, including requests for more than two years of phone records, text messages and financial information, according to two grand jury subpoenas and confidentiality orders seen by Reuters.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team issued a subpoena to Verizon Communications seeking Patel’s communications as it investigates whether President Donald Trump interfered with the 2020 election and hid classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Reuters was unable to determine the nature of Smith’s investigation into Patel or what allegations of misconduct, if any, were being investigated at the time.
Republican senators Charles Grassley, Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz authorized the release of new records about Patel ahead of Tuesday’s subcommittee hearing on the Smith investigation, codenamed “Arctic Frost.”
Smith was appointed special prosecutor in 2022. Reuters previously reported that Smith’s team subpoenaed phone records from Patel and White House chief of staff Suzy Wells, who were private citizens at the time but involved in Trump’s campaign to regain the presidency in 2024.
New documents seen by Reuters show the investigation into Patel is broader than previously reported. In addition to phone calls, online usernames and text messages, Smith and his team also looked for mailing and email addresses, billing and IP addresses, and bank account information, documents show.
The requests included records of phone calls and text messages sent and received, but not the content of those calls or messages themselves, documents show. They also include records of session times and call durations, as well as subscriber information related to Patel’s account.
One of the subpoenas requested records from January 1, 2021, to November 23, 2023. Another subpoena seeks records from October 1, 2020, to February 22, 2023.
Reuters could not determine whether the investigation into Wiles was broader than previously reported.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told Reuters that records showed misconduct by Smith and the FBI at the time.
“The FBI under previous leadership was weaponized in ways that the American people are only now beginning to fully grasp,” Williamson said.
A spokesman for Smith did not respond to a request for comment. He previously told Congress that his investigators were concerned about possible obstruction of justice. He told lawmakers in January that his office “follows Department of Justice policy, complies with legal requirements and takes actions based on the facts and the law.”
Congressional Democrats have defended Smith from previous Republican criticism, saying he acted appropriately in seeking phone records and other evidence they said was necessary to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Trump and his associates. It’s not uncommon for investigators to look for phone calls and other records – even those of famous people – when searching for the facts of a case.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who ran the bureau during the Smith investigation, did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James Mazzone issued a confidentiality order in Patel’s investigation on Nov. 30, 2022, saying the court had “reasonable grounds to believe that disclosing the information would result in evading prosecution, destroying or tampering with evidence, intimidating potential witnesses and seriously jeopardizing the investigation.”
Reuters could not determine whether Verizon complied with Smith’s request or how the information was used. Verizon did not respond to a request for comment.
“My oversight of Arctic Frost has proven that the more you dig, the more you find,” said Grassley, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee investigating Smith’s investigation.
Patel said publicly in 2022 that Trump had declassified documents brought to Mar-a-Lago, but prosecutors disputed that claim and Trump’s lawyers did not raise it in court. That year, after Patel was granted limited immunity from criminal charges, he was subpoenaed to a grand jury to hear evidence in the case.
(Reporting by Jana Winter; Editing by Michael Learmonth, Craig Timberg and Lincoln Feast.)
