House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Monday renewed [1] his demand that former Special Counsel Jack Smith face prosecution, citing newly released records showing Smith’s team tracked calls to and from Susie Wiles’ phone in 2023. Wiles later became President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
The records were declassified by Trump and released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force. Jordan said the latest material strengthens allegations that Smith misled Congress about the scope and methods of his investigations.
Smith’s team used a pen register device to monitor calls coming to and from Wiles’ phone while investigating Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents. The monitoring occurred in 2023, before Wiles became chief of staff.
Smith also faces accusations that his team concealed the monitoring from lawmakers and failed to tell the judge who approved a gag order that communications involving lawmakers were being tracked. The dispute raises questions involving the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
Lawmakers are entitled to notice about subpoenas involving privileged communications, giving them an opportunity to challenge those demands in court. According to the released material, Wiles and affected lawmakers did not receive that opportunity.
A House Judiciary Committee review previously found that Smith’s investigators collected phone toll records from 17 Republican members of Congress and text messages from as many as 44 lawmakers. Some of those messages allegedly included information protected by congressional privilege.
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The lawmakers targeted included former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and Jordan. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against Smith, arguing that the collection of her communications amounted to an unauthorized intrusion into her civil rights.
“The only thing we get wrong is that it’s always worse than we thought,” Jordan told the Just the News, No Noise television show. He pointed to the monitoring of members of Congress, congressional leaders, and Wiles as evidence that the controversy continues to expand.
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The new memos show that FBI agents assigned to Smith’s team worked under a probe codenamed Plasmic Echo. During the 2024 election, agents monitored phone calls, social media activity, political endorsements, and other constitutionally protected activities while examining whether Trump broke any laws involving classified documents.
The resulting data traced calls and text messages between Wiles and at least 21 lawyers affiliated with Trump from about February through May 2023. The records also involved numerous campaign staff members, political advisers and at least five journalists.
Most names were redacted, but the documents identified current FBI Director Kash Patel and Just the News founder John Solomon. Jordan said the communications with lawyers raise concerns that investigators might have reached material protected by attorney-client privilege.
Jordan argued that call timing and subsequent actions could allow investigators to assemble detailed patterns about an individual’s activities. He said the information could be used to “pattern a person’s life.”
Smith defended his conduct during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, saying he and his team “took our obligations seriously” to protect lawmakers’ rights. The document release, however, also revealed that Smith’s prosecution team secretly met at the CIA with former Director John Brennan in late 2023.
The meeting concerned expert testimony in Trump’s classified documents prosecution. Smith had told Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley that he never met Brennan when asked whether he had received consultation or counsel from the former CIA director during his time as special counsel.
Grassley said the meeting qualified as consultation or counsel involving Brennan, Smith and Smith’s team. “Smith’s response before the Senate Judiciary Committee was highly evasive and misleading, at minimum,” Grassley told Just the News.
The Judiciary Committee concluded last month that Smith’s team disregarded the separation of powers by collecting records involving members of Congress. Jordan’s committee referred Smith for possible criminal prosecution in July, alleging that Smith lied about whether collected toll records included the contents of lawmakers’ private messages.
“We think prosecution is warranted because he lied to us, and you’re not allowed to do that,” Jordan said. Justice Department officials previously said the agency was reviewing the referral but had not decided whether to charge Smith.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri also accused Smith’s investigations of being “all about politics from Day 1” and later called for his disbarment. Mike Davis of the Article III Project said other legal avenues could exist if constitutional violations are proven.
Smith’s two Trump investigations produced criminal charges involving classified documents and the 2020 election. He dropped those charges after Trump returned to the Oval Office in 2025, while maintaining that his decisions as special counsel were proper.