Sullivan Echoes Trump, Claims Victimization by Special Counsel Jack Smith in Alaska Report

Special Prosecutor’s Phone Records Request Draws Fire from Senator Sullivan

Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan has accused Special Prosecutor Jack Smith of professional misconduct for obtaining a grand jury subpoena to collect phone records showing calls made or received by Sullivan during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

The allegations, which Sullivan made alongside four other Republican senators in a letter to Trump’s Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, have been strongly refuted by Smith’s legal team as factually inaccurate.

“A number of people have falsely stated that Mr. Smith ‘tapped’ Senators’ phones, ‘spied’ on their communications, or ‘surveilled’ their conversations,” Smith’s lawyers wrote in response to Senator Charles Grassley, one of those making the claims. “As you know, toll records merely contain telephonic routing information—collected after the calls have taken place—identifying incoming and outgoing call numbers, the time of the calls, and their duration.”

Legal experts note that obtaining such records is standard investigative procedure, particularly in cases involving potential obstruction of an official proceeding. Smith’s investigation centered on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to delay the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Smith’s legal team explained that the phone records were part of “a focused effort to confirm or refute reports by multiple news outlets that during and after the January 6 riots at the Capitol, President Trump and his surrogates attempted to call senators to urge them to delay certification of the 2020 election results.”

The controversy stems from calls made by Rudy Giuliani, then Trump’s personal attorney, to several Republican senators on January 6. According to findings from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack, Giuliani called multiple senators including Sullivan, Bill Hagerty, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, Tommy Tuberville, and Ted Cruz.

The committee’s final report revealed that Giuliani was attempting to persuade lawmakers to delay the certification process. This was confirmed by a misdirected voicemail Giuliani left for Senator Tuberville that was instead received by Senator Mike Lee.

“The only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow,” Giuliani said in the recorded message. “So if you could object to every state and, along with a congressman, get a hearing for every state, I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote.”

In his deposition to the January 6 Committee, Giuliani stated he spoke with Sullivan twice that day, though he claimed not to remember the specific content of those conversations.

Sullivan’s account contradicts Giuliani’s testimony. When first questioned about these calls after the committee’s report was published, Sullivan’s spokeswoman Amanda Coyne told the Anchorage Daily News in December 2022 that the senator never spoke with Giuliani but received two calls from an unrecognized number.

“Because of the chaos that ensued on January 6th, it took at least two additional days for Sen. Sullivan to even listen to the messages,” Coyne said. She added that Giuliani apparently had the wrong number and left an “incoherent voice message” about delaying certification.

Sullivan later provided a slightly different version in a March 2023 CNN interview with Jake Tapper. “I was even unaware of that. This was a phone call from somebody, I didn’t even know who it was—they left a message,” Sullivan said. “Ironically Jake, it was actually for the wrong senator, Rudy Giuliani had the wrong phone number. I mean I’ve never met him. I don’t know him.”

Despite these efforts to delay certification, Congress reconvened at 11:35 p.m. on January 6 and confirmed Biden’s victory at 3:41 a.m. on January 7. Sullivan was among the 93 senators who voted to certify the results, while six Republican senators objected.

Legal scholars argue that Smith’s investigation into these communications was not only appropriate but necessary given the serious nature of the allegations surrounding January 6. The indictment resulting from Smith’s investigation stated that Giuliani and Trump “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by having Co-conspirator 1 (Giuliani) call lawmakers to convince them, based on knowingly false claims of election fraud, to delay the certification proceeding.”

As the dispute continues, questions remain about why Trump and Giuliani may have believed Sullivan would assist their efforts, and why there are conflicting accounts about the communications that took place that day.