Two House Republicans told the Daily Caller on Monday that they have not received notices from their phone companies that their records are being targeted by congressional subpoenas.
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz were two of the eleven House Republicans named by a CNN report as targets of records preservation requests sent by the Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Records preservation requests are often sent to record-holders before the targeted information is subpoenaed.
Federal law requires that telecommunications companies alert account holders if their accounts are subpoenaed. Under a legal provision known as the third-party doctrine, telecommunications companies, not account holders, own account records. Therefore, the companies, not the account holders, receive the subpoenas. However, the account holders still must be notified before their communications records are subpoenaed. The absence of notifications suggests that the phone records of Boebert and Gaetz have not yet been subpoenaed.
The other nine House Republicans named in the report are Georgia Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jody Hice, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry.
All eleven Republicans objected to at least one state’s Electoral College All eleven objected to at least one state’s Electoral College count and reportedly played a role in the “Stop the Steal” rally. Brooks and Cawthorn spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally, which immediately preceded the riot.
Jordan spoke with Trump on Jan. 6 “more than once,” although he doesn’t “recall the times,” he told Politico on Sunday.
Jordan did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
The Select Committee has already requested that the Archivist of the United States produce all Jan. 6 communications involving the White House and members of Congress and congressional staff. (RELATED: Jan. 6 Committee Requests Trump White House Communications With DOJ Officials, All Members Of Congress)
Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who was not named as one of the members whose communications may be subpoenaed, has expressed concern that record requests laws may not be followed during the subpoena process.
Read my letter to 1/6 Chair @BennieGThompson about his norm shattering decision to spy on his colleagues.
@ATT @Verizon @TMobile @Facebook @Twitter @FCC pic.twitter.com/G4yahHMklp— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) August 27, 2021
“Recipients of legislative subpoenas retain their constitutional rights throughout the course of an investigation. This right includes the ability of the individuals to challenge the collection and release of their private telecommunications records before Congress obtains and publishes the subpoenaed documents,” he wrote in a letter to Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson.
Banks added in the letter that he was “sending a copy … to the Federal Communications Commission and to the General Counsels of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, Twitter, and Facebook, to remind each of these companies of their legal obligation not to hand over individuals’ private records unless the subject of the subpoena consents to the information being shared or the company has a court order to turn over the records.”
Banks also noted Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff’s leak of Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes’ phone records during congressional Democrats’ 2019 impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump. Schiff subpoenaed AT&T for Nunes’ records, and neither Schiff nor AT&T alerted Nunes of the subpoena.
“This is unprecedented. Never in the history of the House has the majority party abused its power to spy on the minority. Adam Schiff is a notorious leaker and AT&T and everyone else knows that whatever crosses his desk might as well have been sent straight to CNN,” Banks told the Daily Caller.