WASHINGTON, D.C. — First came an Osage donor’s $10 check. Now Chuck Grassley says the federal paper trail reaches into hundreds of thousands of Republicans’ personal records — right down to people ordering a red MAGA hat.
The Iowa Republican and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman released new findings October 14 alleging former special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the Biden Justice Department obtained information covering at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters and supporters through subpoena returns.
Grassley is turning up the heat, arguing the collection went far beyond what Smith needed to investigate. His latest disclosure puts ordinary political participation — donations, voter information and campaign purchases — at the center of an increasingly bitter Washington fight.
From an Osage donation to a nationwide data haul
North Iowa already has a connection to this dispute.
As NIT reported October 2, Grassley singled out an Osage resident who donated just $10 to Trump. The senator said investigators obtained 4,782 donor checks, including 42 Iowa checks, covering contributions between September 2019 and August 2023.
Those checks potentially exposed addresses, banking information and signatures.
The latest disclosure concerns a broader collection of donor and voter information. The check count and the new total measure different things; they should not be added together as separate groups of people.
Names, birthdays and credit card details
According to Grassley’s announcement, the records included names, birth dates, home and email addresses, Republican registration status, employers, occupations and political districts.
Donation amounts and recurring-donor information were also included, along with credit card information such as the last four digits. Some contributions were as small as $1, and amounts generally fell below $1,000.
Grassley argues investigators were trying to “map out the entire Republican Party apparatus.” That is his allegation about the purpose of the collection, rather than a court finding.
Even the MAGA hat orders made the pile
Grassley’s two-page memorandum says more than 148,000 spreadsheet rows were identified as donors. It describes records spanning 2005 through 2021, plus campaign personnel information.
Then there is the merchandise.
According to the memo, investigators obtained red MAGA hat sales records identifying buyers, purchases and home-delivery addresses. A campaign product catalogue included hats, shirts, mugs and door mats.
For Grassley, that is the eyebrow-raiser: Why did a federal investigation need to reach so far into the shopping and donation records of rank-and-file supporters?
The memo presents those records as evidence of investigative overreach. Their collection alone, however, does not establish that every person listed was suspected of a crime or individually targeted for buying campaign merchandise.
Smith has defended the subpoenas
Smith has previously rejected accusations that partisan politics drove his work.
As detailed in NIT’s earlier coverage of the donor-records controversy, he acknowledged obtaining financial information during a September 29 Senate Judiciary hearing and defended subpoenas as tools for gathering evidence in a criminal investigation.
He maintained that his prosecutorial decisions would have been the same regardless of party. Those earlier remarks were not a response to the October 14 disclosure.
Grassley is pressing Democratic committee members to join his oversight effort. The fight now turns on the justification for collecting the records: Smith’s defense of investigative necessity versus Grassley’s accusation that the government cast its net far too wide.