WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley is sounding the alarm after whistleblower records showed former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation obtained thousands of personal donor checks from Americans who gave money to President Donald Trump and Republican-aligned organizations — including 42 people from Iowa and at least one northern Iowa resident from Osage.
Grassley singled out the Osage donor after learning the person contributed just $10 to Trump.
According to Grassley, Smith’s team subpoenaed the personal check, placing information including the donor’s home address and banking information into the hands of federal investigators.
“An Iowan frm Osage donated $10 to Pres Trump,” Grassley wrote on social media before accusing Smith’s operation of exposing the donor’s private information.
Grassley then delivered his broader political conclusion in unmistakable terms: “When runaway Democrat govt is in power IOWANS pay the price.”
Osage donor gave Trump just $10
The Osage example puts a northern Iowa face on what Grassley describes as a sweeping federal investigation that reached well beyond high-level political officials.
The senator said whistleblower disclosures provided to his office show Smith’s team acquired at least 4,782 donor checks from Americans who contributed to Trump or Trump-aligned Republican entities between September 2019 and August 2023.
Many involved small-dollar contributions.
Forty-two of the checks belonged to Iowans.
The records potentially exposed information printed on personal checks, including home addresses, bank account numbers, routing numbers and signatures.
Grassley has argued that ordinary donors should never have been swept so deeply into a federal investigation merely because they financially supported a political candidate or organization.
Smith confirms team obtained financial information
Grassley confronted Smith directly during a September 29 Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing.
When Grassley asked whether the special counsel operation obtained donor information that included financial records, Smith acknowledged that his team had acquired financial information.
Smith defended the subpoenas as investigative tools used during a criminal investigation.
Grassley was unconvinced.
He argued that obtaining thousands of donor checks was unnecessary to the investigation and pointed out that the information did not ultimately feature prominently in Smith’s public report.
Grassley says investigation went far beyond Trump
Grassley has increasingly characterized the Arctic Frost investigation as something much larger than an inquiry into Trump’s conduct following the 2020 presidential election.
The Iowa senator says documents obtained through congressional oversight show investigators gathered information involving hundreds of Republican people and organizations, dozens of members of Congress and numerous journalists.
Grassley said the operation involved records connected to approximately 430 Republican individuals and organizations and records involving 44 members of Congress.
He has accused Smith of using January 6 as justification for an investigation that expanded deep into Republican political activity.
“There’s no justification for what Smith did,” Grassley said in a subsequent interview, arguing that investigators were going after far more than Trump.
Grassley also called Smith a “tool of the Biden administration” and accused the Justice Department of applying one standard to Democrats and another to Republicans.
Those are Grassley’s allegations. Smith has denied that partisan politics drove his prosecution decisions.
Trump has repeatedly branded Smith ‘deranged’
President Trump has spent years fiercely attacking the former special counsel and has repeatedly referred to him as “Deranged Jack Smith.”
Trump has accused Smith of conducting politically motivated prosecutions designed to prevent his return to the White House.
Smith has rejected that characterization and maintained that his decisions were based on the evidence gathered by prosecutors.
The new disclosures involving donor records have now given Trump’s allies another avenue for attacking the former special counsel’s investigative tactics.
Grassley says thousands of private checks were collected
Grassley’s office says the 4,782 checks came from donors across all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
Some contributions were reportedly as small as $1.
The records were collected as part of the federal Arctic Frost investigation, which later became part of Smith’s election-related case against Trump.
Grassley says whistleblower information indicates the donor checks were routed through the investigation and ultimately became part of federal law-enforcement records.
For the Iowa senator, the issue has now become one of personal privacy as much as partisan politics.
He has questioned why federal investigators needed detailed financial records belonging to thousands of people whose primary connection to the investigation was making a political donation.
Smith says subpoenas were part of criminal investigation
Smith has pushed back against Republican accusations that his investigation was designed to target conservatives.
During the Senate hearing, he said prosecutors issued subpoenas to gather evidence and determine the facts surrounding efforts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.
Smith said he would have made the same prosecutorial decisions regardless of whether the subject was a Republican or Democrat.
Democratic senators have also defended Smith and argued that Republicans are attempting to discredit a legitimate criminal investigation into events surrounding the 2020 election and January 6.
Grassley ramps up investigation of federal agencies
The donor-check controversy is only one piece of Grassley’s broader congressional investigation into Arctic Frost.
Grassley has also scrutinized subpoenas involving congressional phone records and communications involving journalists and government sources.
Earlier this year, he demanded answers from major telecommunications companies after discovering that phone records associated with members of Congress had been provided to investigators.
NorthIowaToday.com has continued following Grassley and Iowa’s congressional delegation through other major federal disputes, including the senators’ recent push on the Farm Bill:
https://northiowatoday.com/2026/08/07/iowa-senators-ernst-and-grassley-fight-to-pass-farm-bill-as-democrats-block-measure-in-committee/
NIT also recently covered Iowa leaders’ response after the Trump administration approved millions of dollars in federal disaster assistance for the state:
https://northiowatoday.com/2026/09/02/trump-approves-5-million-in-iowa-storm-disaster-relief-as-state-leaders-praise-federal-response/
No separate Iowa leadership reaction yet
As of Thursday morning, NIT had not located separate public statements from Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Joni Ernst or Iowa’s U.S. House delegation specifically addressing the disclosure involving the 42 Iowa donor checks.
Grassley remains the Iowa official driving the controversy publicly.
His use of the Osage donor as an example makes the issue especially relevant in northern Iowa: according to the senator, an ordinary resident gave Trump only $10, yet the donor’s personal check was ultimately swept into one of the nation’s highest-profile federal political investigations.
Grassley says that is precisely why Iowans should be paying attention.