Former special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the Biden Justice Department obtained spreadsheets on “over 639,000 individuals, at minimum” – Republican donors, supporters and voters – according to a new memo from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, first reported by Fox News Digital on Wednesday. Grassley’s account rests on whistleblower disclosures to his committee.
Of those, more than 148,000 rows are identified in the spreadsheets as donors, who generally gave small amounts. The data includes names, dates of birth, home addresses, emails, whether the person is a registered Republican, occupation and employer, credit card information, donor analysis data and donation amounts. Grassley said samples on the list included retirees, pool technicians, drivers and loggers.
The Daily Caller reports that the trove also covers the shipping addresses of people who bought MAGA hats, and that it reaches back to 2005. The Fox account of the memo does not mention hat buyers, so that detail rests on the Daily Caller’s reading.
“This update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly invasive donor data – and voter data – beyond what could conceivably be necessary” for the special counsel’s mandate, Grassley said. He added that it “corroborates that Smith and his partisan team aimed to map out the entire Republican Party apparatus,” and again called on Senate Judiciary Democrats to join his oversight work.
Smith told the committee on Sept. 29 that his team “acquired financial information.” Pressed by Grassley for a yes or no on whether his office obtained donor data, Smith answered “Yes,” according to Fox’s account, and said he could not “recite to you every subpoena we issued.” He said the subpoenas served a criminal investigation and that he had “a duty to collect facts.” Smith’s newly launched law firm did not immediately respond to Fox’s request for comment, and no response from Smith or the Justice Department to the new memo had appeared in the coverage reviewed.
The memo follows an earlier Grassley release, also drawn from whistleblower records. On the day of the hearing, the committee’s Republicans said Smith’s team acquired at least 4,782 checks from donors to President Trump and Trump-aligned Republican entities, written between September 2019 and August 2023 in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The checks show home addresses, bank account and routing numbers and signatures, and were routed to former FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina, the release says. Grassley said some gave as little as $1, that 42 of the checks came from Iowans, and that “the Justice Department and FBI will forever possess thousands of people’s addresses.”
At the hearing, Smith defended secretly obtaining Republican lawmakers’ phone records. He could not say whether his subpoenas sought the lawmakers’ physical locations, and could not recall key details about his demands for conservative fundraising information, the Washington Examiner reported.
The donor material fits a pattern Grassley has been releasing for a year. In October 2025 he made public 197 subpoenas sent to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, seeking records tied to at least 430 named Republican individuals and entities, including statistical data and analysis on donors and fundraising. “This was clearly a fishing expedition,” he said then. In July, Grassley said records showed Smith’s team obtained and reviewed texts involving 44 current and former lawmakers, and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said Congress was weighing a criminal referral over Smith’s testimony about those records.
Smith is now fighting on several fronts. As we reported earlier this month, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sued him over the seizure of lawmakers’ phone records, seeking $1 in damages, and Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., filed a bar complaint recommending disbarment.Â
Tyler Durden
Wed, 10/14/2026 – 22:35
