Jack Smith's Senate phone records probe turns to Verizon's handling of subpoenas

By Fox News · Fox News

EXCLUSIVE: The Senate investigation into former Special Counsel Jack Smith's "Arctic Frost" probe is widening, as Republican lawmakers question Verizon’s handling of subpoenas for senators’ phone records after the telecom giant failed to disclose one during an earlier congressional records search. As part of Operation Arctic Frost — the codename for the FBI's Trump-election-interference probe with Smith placed at the helm — prosecutors subpoenaed Verizon and other phone carriers for toll records tied to members of Congress and other Republican figures. Several conservative entities were swept up in the probe, including the late Charlie Kirk. Verizon later acknowledged omitting Smith's subpoena from its congressional record search. The dispute centers less on Verizon's compliance with the subpoena than on what the company knew afterward, whether it should have notified Congress and why it failed to disclose the subpoena during an earlier records search. BIDEN SPECIAL COUNSEL’S 'RUNAWAY TRAIN’ SCOOPED UP SENSITIVE LAWMAKER INFO: 'ABUSE OF POWER' Smith’s investigation has faced increased scrutiny in recent months, and now Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley , R-Iowa — whose records were among those obtained — and a slew of his colleagues want to know what Verizon knew, when it knew it and whether the company should have notified affected members of Congress after turning over their phone records to Smith's team. "Jack Smith oversaw a sweeping and unprecedented investigation that swept-up records from hundreds of Republican entities, including the phone toll records and text messages from myself and dozens of my colleagues," Grassley told Fox News Digital Friday. Toll records are essentially the metadata of a telephone call — and exclude the contents of the conversation. They often include the phone numbers involved, date, time, duration and often the operative cell-tower location. MAJOR PHONE CARRIERS REVEAL JACK SMITH’S SUBPOENAS FOR REPUBLICAN SENATORS’ RECOR…