Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and fifteen colleagues sent a letter to Verizon on Thursday demanding the telecom giant explain how a 2023 grand jury subpoena tied to Jack Smith's "Arctic Frost" investigation vanished from its own paperwork for more than two years - only to resurface after the company chalked the omission up to "human error."
The letter, addressed to Verizon CEO Dan Schulman, is the latest turn in Grassley's monthslong excavation of Arctic Frost - the Biden-era FBI/DOJ probe-turned-Trump-prosecution that has already produced a House criminal referral for Smith himself, revelations that his team accessed the actual text messages of 44 lawmakers, and now a fight over what one of the country's largest phone companies knew and sat on.
What Subpoena?
Back in October 2023, Grassley asked Verizon to search its files for every DOJ or federal law enforcement request touching Senate devices between January 2016 and October 2023, part of his long-running Crossfire Hurricane oversight. Verizon wrote back that it generally keeps legal process on file for four years and had no records predating October 2019.
What it didn't mention: a May 25, 2023 grand jury subpoena issued by Smith's Arctic Frost team for senators' phone toll records, including two numbers belonging to the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms.
Congress didn't learn the subpoena existed until 2025, when Verizon told Grassley's office the 2023 omission
