Newly released transcripts from the House Judiciary Committee are shedding new light on the Justice Department’s 2022 seizure of Rep. Scott Perry’s cellphone, revealing the internal deliberations and legal reasoning of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigative team. The documents, made public on Tuesday, include interviews with five prosecutors who were directly involved in the investigation. Their statements provide a rare look into how federal authorities navigate the sensitive process of searching the property of a sitting member of Congress.

The release comes amid ongoing debate over the appropriate boundaries between law enforcement and legislative privilege, especially when federal investigators seek evidence from lawmakers. The case involving Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, is particularly notable because he was among several GOP lawmakers who supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. The transcripts show that the Justice Department’s approach to Perry’s phone was shaped by both legal requirements and concerns about preserving evidence.

J.P. Cooney, who served as deputy special counsel at the time, told committee members he participated in discussions about whether to obtain a search warrant for Perry’s phone. However, Cooney said he did not recall whether prosecutors considered seeking Perry’s consent before moving forward with the warrant. He also could not remember specific conversations about how the search warrant would be executed or how long Perry was without access to his phone.

Despite these gaps in memory, Cooney stated that Perry was given an opportunity to inspect the device and assert any privilege claims before officials reviewed its contents. This step is significant because members of Congress are protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause, which is intended to shield them from executive branch interference in their legislative work.

When asked about the legal standards for seizing a member of Congress’s phone, Cooney explained, “I don’t believe that the law requires us to take specific steps with respect to a member of Congress that are not taken with respect to others, other than the Speech or Debate Clause.” He further acknowledged that Justice Department policy requires approval from the Public Integrity Section when seeking a search warrant involving a lawmaker. “My recollection is that we complied with the requirements in the Justice Manual,” Cooney said, referring to the department’s internal guidelines.

Prosecutors’ Reasoning and Concerns

The transcripts also include testimony from Timothy Duree, another prosecutor on the case. Duree told the committee that the team did not consider seeking Perry’s voluntary cooperation as a simpler or preferable option. He argued that voluntary requests for evidence can create opportunities for material to be altered or destroyed before investigators can secure it. Duree explained, “There are myriad opportunities for evidence to be altered, tampered with, deleted, added to and in this search warrant, same as any others, as I just explained in the last hour, it was important to me and our team to obtain the evidence in a way that was unadulterated.”

This concern about preserving the integrity of evidence is a common consideration in criminal investigations, but it takes on added significance when the subject is a sitting member of Congress. The prosecutors’ statements suggest that the team weighed the risks of delay or potential tampering against the need to respect congressional privileges.

In addition to Cooney and Duree, the committee interviewed prosecutors Molly Gaston, Ray Hulser, and Thomas Windom, as well as former DOJ Office of Inspector General Special Agent Brian Burnett. While the transcripts confirm their participation in the investigation, the committee’s release did not detail their specific comments or contributions to the decision-making process.

Broader Context and Reactions

The seizure of Rep. Perry’s phone has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and legal experts, largely because of the separation-of-powers issues involved in investigating a sitting member of Congress. The Speech or Debate Clause is a key constitutional protection designed to ensure that legislators can perform their duties without undue interference from the executive branch. In this case, Cooney emphasized that the investigative team followed established Justice Department procedures and constitutional safeguards throughout the process.

The Judiciary Committee’s release of these transcripts is part of a broader effort to examine how federal law enforcement agencies handle sensitive investigations involving elected officials. However, the documents do not include responses from Perry or his legal team regarding the newly disclosed details. It remains unclear how Perry and his attorneys view the Justice Department’s actions or whether they plan to challenge any aspect of the search.

The investigation into Perry and other Republican lawmakers who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election results continues to be a point of contention in Congress. The newly released transcripts provide additional context for the Justice Department’s decision-making but leave some questions unanswered about the balance between law enforcement imperatives and constitutional protections for members of Congress.