House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is asking major banks to hand over communications and materials related to former special counsel Jack Smith’s far-reaching investigations into President Donald Trump.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Morgan Stanley are among more than a dozen financial institutions receiving letters from the Ohio Republican, who wants documents relating to requests for financial data from federal law enforcement officials.
“During the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department of Justice subpoenaed financial institutions … for financial records of private customer data in its politicized investigations into President Trump,” Jordan wrote in the letters obtained by POLITICO. “We write to request relevant materials in [your] possession.”
Smith was appointed by then-President Joe Biden to investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents and efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election – the latter of which has prompted renewed outrage among Republicans after revelations that Smith’s office requested GOP senators’ private phone data without their knowledge. Republicans see that move as an overreach and the investigation itself as a politicization of the Justice Department.
Jordan was already conducting his own investigation into Smith’s work, including asking Smith to sit for a transcribed interview with his committee. Smith has countered he will answer lawmakers’ questions in a public forum, after he has the opportunity to view his records from the Justice Department. The two men have not yet reached an agreement.
In the meantime, Jordan has just recently discovered that two years worth of his own phone records were also subpoenaed by the Biden DOJ – though the legal document showing the seizure was dated before Smith’s appointment in 2022.
“The thing that got me was the length of time,” Jordan said in an interview Friday. “It’s just creepy, and it’s ridiculous … I want to know who signed off on it.”
He said he had not yet decided if he would call Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, to sit for an interview with his committee, too.
Representatives with JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley did not immediately return a request for comment about Jordan’s Friday letter. Spokespeople for Bank for America and Citi declined to comment.
