A Republican senator has filed a formal complaint asking Tennessee’s attorney disciplinary board to investigate former special counsel Jack Smith and pursue his disbarment.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) sent a four-page letter dated Wednesday to R. Culver Schmid, chairman of the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, accusing Smith of “serious misconduct” when he obtained senators’ phone records during his investigation of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Hagerty wrote that Smith subpoenaed Verizon for non-content records of calls made by Hagerty and other sitting senators. Along with the subpoena came a nondisclosure order barring Verizon from telling anyone about it, including the senators themselves. Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., issued the order.
The GOP senator argues that Smith’s request to the judge left out the fact that the records belonged to members of Congress. He says it also left out the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause and a federal law that allows Senate service providers to notify the Senate of legal demands for its data.
As a result, Hagerty wrote, he never had a chance to challenge the subpoena, and he also claimed the order was “apparently also written by Smith, and rubber-stamped by the judge.”
“Smith’s actions have set a precedent that a legislator should think twice before answering the phone,” Hagerty wrote.
The senator alleges that Smith violated rules requiring lawyers to be candid with courts in one-sided proceedings and he asked the board to seek “the most serious remedy possible — disbarment.” He cited Smith’s “lack of remorse” and a “chilling effect on legislative communications.”
The letter says that when senators questioned Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, he stated that “we submitted these nondisclosure orders consistent with the law and department policy.”
Smith holds a Tennessee law license, worked as a federal prosecutor in Nashville and served as acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in 2017.
A disciplinary ruling in Tennessee could matter beyond the state. Courts in other jurisdictions and federal courts where a lawyer is licensed typically consider imposing matching discipline, known as reciprocal discipline, when a lawyer is sanctioned elsewhere.
Hagerty indicated in a social media post sharing the complaint that Verizon would be “next up” for scrutiny.
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