Former Special Counsel Jack Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, and whistleblower records released by Chairman Chuck Grassley during the hearing show his team collected 4,782 personal checks from Americans who donated to Donald Trump and Trump-aligned entities between September 2019 and August 2023.
The checks, according to Grassley, came from donors in all 50 states, including 42 people from Iowa. He said that figure reflects only what investigators have found so far, meaning the total could grow.
Grassley said the records obtained by Smith’s team include donors’ home addresses, bank account and routing numbers, and signatures. One example circulated by Senate Republicans described an Iowan from Osage who gave $10 to Trump’s campaign; Smith’s team subpoenaed the personal check and, in doing so, obtained that donor’s private information, including a home address and bank details, which was then handed to the Justice Department and FBI.
Grassley confronted Smith directly over the collection during the hearing.
“No matter what you say, there’s no legitimate basis for what you did. Especially since your staff killed an investigation into the Clinton campaign. Donations to Republican groups wasn’t necessary to your investigation, which is proved out by the fact it wasn’t mentioned in your public report. Now, the Justice Department and FBI will forever possess thousands of people’s addresses, phone numbers, banks, bank account numbers, bank routing numbers and copies of their true signatures. Every member on this committee ought to be outraged for what happened to their constituents. I hope one of my Democratic colleagues will join me in that outrage.”
Separate reporting cited during the hearing indicated Smith’s team also reviewed communications between journalists and Republican or Trump-aligned officials.
For ordinary donors, especially small-dollar givers like the Osage resident who gave $10, the disclosure raises a basic question: why would a federal investigation into a presidential campaign require pulling personal checks and banking details from everyday citizens across all 50 states, including dozens in Iowa, when that information reportedly never made it into the public report on the case?
The records now sit permanently with the Justice Department and FBI, according to Grassley, regardless of what comes of the broader investigation.
