Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump extended to Americans who purchased merchandise bearing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, according to records obtained by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. The materials indicate that Smith’s team sought buyers’ names, home delivery addresses, and details about their purchases as part of the probe.
The revelations add to mounting scrutiny of Smith’s investigative methods and the Justice Department’s handling of the case. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has been examining the scope of the operation and the collection of personal information belonging to Trump supporters and Republican donors.
In a memo outlining the latest findings, Grassley said records showed that Smith’s Special Counsel’s Office and the Biden Justice Department obtained information about sales of red MAGA hats, including the identities of individual customers, what they purchased, and where the merchandise was shipped.
The investigation also involved a broader catalogue of Trump campaign merchandise, according to the memo, including T-shirts, mugs, and doormats. Grassley said the records illustrated the extent of what he characterized as irrelevant and invasive information gathering, adding that the material was shared with FBI agents.
The hat purchases were only one component of a much larger collection of Republican-related data obtained during the investigation known as “Arctic Frost.” Grassley has previously disclosed that Smith’s team used subpoenas to obtain voter information and political donation records involving Republicans.
According to the memo, the Justice Department obtained spreadsheets containing information on at least 639,000 Republican donors, supporters, and voters. More than 148,000 entries in those records were identified as donors.
The information reportedly included individuals’ names, birth dates, residential addresses, voter registration details, donation amounts, employment information, email addresses, and credit card data. Some contributions were as small as $1. The records also included Republican campaign personnel and may have encompassed campaign volunteers.
Grassley argued that the breadth of the data collection went far beyond what Smith needed to carry out his stated investigative responsibilities. He said the findings reinforced concerns that the operation sought to compile information on the Republican Party and its supporters more broadly.
“The new findings further corroborate that Smith and his partisan team aimed to map out the entire Republican Party apparatus,” Grassley said.
In his statement accompanying the memo, the senator condemned the collection of donor and voter information and called on Democrats to support further congressional oversight rather than defend the former special counsel.
“This update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly invasive donor data – and voter data – beyond what could conceivably be necessary for Smith or his team to fulfill the Special Counsel’s mandate,” Grassley said.
“I again call on my Democratic colleagues to join my oversight work instead of trying to defend Smith and sweep his abuse of authority under the rug.”
Grassley also described the collection of MAGA merchandise purchasing records as evidence that the investigation reached beyond what Smith had ostensibly been tasked with examining. He characterized the effort as “well outside Smith’s scope of purported review and further corroborating that the Special Counsel operation was designed to map out the Republican Party.”
