Courts' administrative office says judges should not "explain their deliberative processes" and that applications "would not reveal" a number was a member's
Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (identical letters went to Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Ron Johnson)
“As set forth in my previous letter of November 12, 2025, it would encroach upon the separation of powers and the independence of the Judiciary for judges to be required to explain their deliberative processes in reaching judicial decisions. ... Applications for NDOs typically do not attach the related subpoena; rather they identify the subject accounts only by a signifier — e.g., a phone number. As a result, NDO applications would not reveal whether a particular phone number belonged to a member of Congress.”
Source and context
Original text
About this source
The federal judiciary's administrative office replied to the November 20, 2025 letter. Identical letters went to Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Ron Johnson, and Sen. Dick Durbin was copied.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original text
About this source
Letter from Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson and Rep. Jim Jordan asking the chief judge of the D.C. federal district court eight questions about the nondisclosure orders he signed in Arctic Frost and special counsel subpoenas.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The November 20, 2025 letter from Grassley, Johnson and Jordan to Chief Judge Boasberg asked whether the special counsel's office told the court it sought records for sitting members of Congress and whether the court considered 2 U.S.C. section 6628. It said 19 of 45 nondisclosure orders on Verizon and AT&T subpoenas, including those for members' records, were signed by Boasberg, and asked for answers by December 4.
After the quotation
The Administrative Office's letter cited the Justice Department inspector general's December 2024 report, which found that department policy then did not require nondisclosure applications to say the records were a member's, and noted the department changed its manual in September 2024. As of September 29, 2026, we could not locate a public statement from Boasberg about the orders.
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?
The Administrative Office did not say whether the orders were proper. It declined, on separation-of-powers grounds, to have judges explain their decisions, and supplied information about typical practice instead. Because the source records it expressly declining to address the judge's reasoning, we labeled it Explicitly stayed out.
- Recorded on
- Published here
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