Sen. Marsha Blackburn sued former special counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday over his office’s subpoena for her phone records during its investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The Tennessee Republican is seeking a symbolic sum of $1 in nominal damages from Smith personally. She also wants a federal court to declare his appointment unconstitutional and order her records returned or destroyed.
The lawsuit came one day after Smith defended his move to obtain Republican lawmakers’ phone records during a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, another Tennessee Republican whose records were obtained, separately filed a professional misconduct complaint against Smith on Wednesday. He asked the Tennessee Supreme Court’s disciplinary board to investigate Smith and pursue disbarment.
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Hagerty alleges Smith withheld key information from a federal court, leading to it approving an order that prevented Verizon from telling him about the subpoena.
Smith defended the nondisclosure orders Tuesday, saying his office followed federal law and Justice Department policy.
In May 2023, Smith’s office issued a grand jury subpoena to Verizon for Blackburn’s toll records. The records show who communicated, when and for how long, but not what was said. The subpoena sought records from Jan. 4 through Jan. 7, but Blackburn’s lawsuit says Verizon inadvertently turned over records from Jan. 1 through Jan. 4 instead.
Smith told senators that investigators sought lawmakers’ records to understand the scope of the alleged conspiracy and who Trump and his allies were trying to influence as they sought to delay certification of the 2020 election. He said the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section approved the process.
In the lawsuit, Blackburn argues Smith had no authority to subpoena her records because his appointment by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. She also accuses Smith of violating her constitutional and civil rights in obtaining the records.
The conservative legal group New Civil Liberties Alliance filed the lawsuit on her behalf in federal court in Tennessee.
“Through his Arctic Frost witch hunt that targeted conservatives across America and even the President of the United States, Jack Smith perpetrated one of the worst abuses of government power in our nation’s history,” Blackburn said in a statement on Wednesday, referring to the official name of the federal investigation into Trump’s attempts to stay in power following his 2020 election loss.
Blackburn alleges Smith’s office did not tell the judge who approved the nondisclosure order that the subpoena sought a sitting senator’s records. She argues the secrecy prevented her from challenging the demand and asserting protections under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
Blackburn and Hagerty were among the Republican lawmakers whose records were sought during Arctic Frost, the FBI investigation that later became part of Smith’s 2020 election case against Trump.
Smith brought two federal cases against Trump, one over the 2020 election and another over classified documents. Both ended after Trump won the 2024 election because of the Justice Department’s longstanding position that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
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