Courts' administrative office says judges should not "explain their deliberative processes" and that applications "would not reveal" a number was a member's
Administrative Office of the U.S. CourtsDirector 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)
Robert J. Conrad Jr., director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, replied on December 1, 2025 to a November 20 letter that asked Chief Judge James Boasberg to explain his nondisclosure orders. Conrad wrote that judges should not be required to explain their deliberative processes and that the matters remained under seal, and described general practice: applications typically identify accounts only by phone number, so they would not reveal whether a number belonged to a member of Congress.
“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.”
Original text
Original text
Where this statement fits
Were members of Congress's phone records and text messages properly obtained in the Arctic Frost and Jack Smith investigations?
On September 29, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled "Oversight of Jack Smith's Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters," with former special counsel Jack Smith as its only witness. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and other Republicans said that Smith's team, in the FBI's Arctic Frost investigation and its own election case, obtained members of Congress's phone toll records and text messages, used nondisclosure orders to keep members from learning of it, and breached the Speech or Debate Clause. Smith said the toll records were non-content records obtained after he directed his staff to consult the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, and that the nondisclosure orders were consistent with the law and Justice Department policy at the time. Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-IL) called the attacks on Smith "petty, personal, and political." The sides and the documents give different counts of the members affected. The dispute is whether the collection of members' phone records and messages was proper.
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.
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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
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.
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The Dispute Index. "Courts' administrative office says judges should not "explain their deliberative processes" and that applications "would not reveal" a number was a member's". First published: 2026-09-29. Last updated: 2026-09-29. https://disputeindex.com/events/3324-robert-j-conrad-jr-director-of-the-administrative