House Republicans released six closely watched transcripts Tuesday, offering a new look inside former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s controversial investigation of President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers.
The documents include testimony from five members of the special prosecutor’s office, including J.P. Cooney, Molly Gaston, Ray Hulser, Tad Duree and Thomas Windom, all members of Smith’s team. The released files also include testimony from Brian Burnett, an agent for the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Taken together, they add substantial detail about the reasoning behind investigatory decisions — especially concerning how they approached probing lawmaker communications — as they investigated whether Trump had attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. Committee Republicans allege investigators improperly subpoenaed phone records belonging to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers during the Arctic Frost probe, and secured gag orders preventing lawmakers from learning the Biden-Harris Justice Department had obtained their records.
The new revelations focus especially on communications gathered from Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the only lawmaker who had his phone seized as a part of the investigation.
According to testimony from Smith’s prosecutor Timothy “Tad” Duree, investigators had decided to seize the phone using a warrant because of his proximity to Trump and his hand in trying to find a legal strategy to keep Trump in office after he lost. Notably, Perry was a go-between from Trump to Jeffrey Clark, the highest-ranking DOJ official willing to explore weaknesses in the 2020 election.
“If you seek to obtain something voluntarily, people can just choose not to give it to you. That’s one obvious thing. But there are myriad opportunities for evidence to be altered, tampered with, deleted, added to. And in this search warrant, same as any others, it was important to me and our team to obtain evidence in a way that it was unadulterated,” Duree said in his testimony.
Committee Republicans allege investigators improperly subpoenaed phone records belonging to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers during the Arctic Frost probe, and secured gag orders preventing lawmakers from learning the Biden-Harris Justice Department had obtained their records.
While parts of the testimony underscored efforts to manage the investigation by the book, other parts highlighted some unusual characteristics.
A veteran agent assigned to the Jeffrey Clark investigation testified that the probe operated in a way “unique, as far as the over 30 years of law enforcement experience I have,” according to transcript documents released by Jordan’s panel.
Prosecutors directed investigative steps normally handled by agents, he said, describing the dynamic as “top down,” in that when a forensics agent receives the results of a subpoena, it would go back to the prosecutor – not the agent who subpoenaed the records, according to Brian Burnett – one of four individuals whose interviews were released.
Burnett spent 15 years in the DOJ’s inspector general’s office before his 2024 retirement, and was a senior narcotics detective with the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s office in a Richmond, Virginia suburb for nine years.
Asked whether he had encountered another case during his career in which prosecutors dictated the investigation in that manner, Burnett responded, “Not in my entire 30 years of law enforcement.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
