Patel says prior leadership "subpoenaed eight sitting United States senators" and put the records "in a lockbox"
Director of the FBI, in an interview on Fox News
“you don't force them to politicize law enforcement and lie to federal courts to attack your political opponents and get secret search warrants and go spy on members of Congress ... They took this information where they subpoenaed eight sitting United States senators, put it in a lockbox, put that lockbox in a vault, and then put that vault in a cyber place where no one can see or search these files. ... We found this information to expose the politicization by Jack Smith and the prior Department of Justice.”
Source and context
Interview
About this source
Fox News video of FBI Director Kash Patel's interview with host Sean Hannity, posted October 7, 2025. Patel answered a question about the FBI's handling of records on eight senators.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
Letter from Smith's attorneys responding to Grassley and other senators about the grand jury subpoena for toll records of eight senators and one House member. It also answers statements by FBI Director Kash Patel.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
A redacted FBI Washington Field Office document that Grassley released on October 6, 2025. It says an FBI special agent conducted preliminary toll analysis of limited toll records for nine named members of Congress.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Official statement
About this source
The committee majority's release of Grassley's prepared opening statement at the March 24, 2026 subcommittee hearing, describing records dated January 2023 that name 14 members of Congress.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Interview
About this source
Fox News video of Patel's interview with Sean Hannity. Early in the interview, answering a question about FBI results, Patel said agents do their job when they are not forced to politicize law enforcement, lie to federal courts, get secret search warrants and spy on members of Congress.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The first remark came as Patel answered Hannity's question about FBI results; the second answered Hannity's question about Jack Smith and senators' phone records. The interview aired the day after Grassley released an FBI document dated September 27, 2023 that lists preliminary toll analysis of limited toll records for nine members of Congress. Hannity asked Patel about the agents involved, and Patel said he had fired the agents and "blew up" the public corruption squad at the Washington Field Office.
After the quotation
Patel said accountability was coming and that the FBI was just warming up. Smith's attorneys wrote Grassley on October 21, 2025 that there was no support for Patel's assertion that Smith hid the toll-record information, and that the subpoena was "entirely proper, lawful, and consistent with established Department of Justice policy." On March 24, 2026 Grassley released two Smith subpoenas for Patel's own toll records, with the nondisclosure orders that kept them secret.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Patel described the records of eight sitting senators as gathered and then hidden by prior leadership, and said the FBI found them "to expose the politicization by Jack Smith and the prior Department of Justice." He also said agents should not be forced to "go spy on members of Congress." That criticizes the collection as improper and politicized, so we labeled it Condemned.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Jack Smith
Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“for all of the outrage of my colleagues over your requesting toll records because Rudy Giuliani and other co-conspirators were calling some of the members of this body ... the Barr Justice Department sought toll records from members of Congress. Not a peep from my colleagues about that ... That apparently was okay. That apparently doesn't violate speech and debate. ... My colleagues talked about the stress on members of having their toll records requested as witnesses, not even targets.”Read statement
“It's been widely reported that you and your team issued some 44 subpoenas related to the tolling records of at least 20 Republican members of Congress, including at least eight U.S. senators, including at least four members of this committee ... it appears the actual reason for the NDOs was to avoid giving those members the opportunity to challenge the subpoenas pursuant to the protection that they enjoyed under the Constitution's speech and debate clause. ... Your team took actions to directly undermine the separation of powers at the heart of the Constitution.”Read statement
“the Department of Justice's own Public Integrity Section, it did give you explicit warnings that going after the phone records of members of the legislative branch carried what they referred to as litigation risks due to these constitutional privileges. ... you never actually told Chief Judge Boasberg that you were targeting 19 members of a coordinate branch of government, the legislative branch. ... There should be an articulated basis for secrecy when you're asking for a gag order. ... in a way that arguably makes what Richard Nixon did in Watergate look like a Sunday picnic.”Read statement