Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, who is currently running to become governor of that state, alleged in a Sept. 30 lawsuit that former special counsel Jack Smith violated her constitutional rights when he obtained her phone logs as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Blackburn filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee one day after Smith testified Sept. 29 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about two criminal cases he brought against then-former President Donald Trump in 2023. In one of those cases, Smith alleged Trump unlawfully tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 presidential
election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.
Smith subpoenaed what are known as "toll records" for Blackburn and other members of Congress. Those records provide details on who a person has communicated with, when and for how long, but don't provide the substance of text messages or phone calls.
According to Blackburn's lawsuit, Smith obtained that information about her for Jan. 4-7 of 2021 – the days surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump supporters attempted to stop then-President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 victory from being certified.
Smith has said the toll records corroborated evidence that Trump and his co-conspirators were trying to "exploit" the violence on Jan. 6 by contacting members of Congress to further delay proceedings recognizing Biden's election win.
"To seek to further delay the proceedings, in violation of the law – given what had happened that afternoon at January 6th – in my view, added to the powerful evidence we had of Donald Trump's guilt, and the participation of his co-conspirators in his criminal scheme at his behest," Smith said at the Sept. 29 Senate hearing.
However, Blackburn says in her lawsuit that Smith's actions violated her First Amendment right to freely associate, her Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and seizures and also the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, which provides some legal protection for the speech or debate that takes place within Congress.
Smith wielded "enormous power that did not belong to him, resulting in egregious violations of personal liberty and constitutional rights," according to the lawsuit.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sen. Marsha Blackburn sues Jack Smith for getting Jan. 6 phone records
