Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) lashed out at Politico's Kyle Cheney on Tuesday when the legal reporter fact-checked the Republican about his claim he was "wiretapped" by President Joe Biden's administration.
Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigative report, listed in footnote 132 that investigators attempt to overthrow the 2020 election found that the White House called several Republican officials.
The documents show that, on multiple occasions, President Donald Trump called Hawley on Jan. 5 and 6, ahead of the certification of the election, declaring that Trump had won.
In a rant before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Hawley claimed that his phones had been tapped. Cheney explained that's far from what happened.
"Hawley falsely claiming that the FBI 'tapped' his and other senators' phones," wrote Cheney on X. "The documents show a pull of non-content phone records from Jan. 4-7, 2021 – with some key details (like the limitations built into the order) still unknown."
Hawley reposted Cheney's comments, saying that the reporter is saying, "don’t believe your lying eyes! FBI just got caught tracking incoming calls, outgoing calls, location, duration, metadata - but that’s not 'tapping.'"
Cheney responded, "Correct. That’s not 'tapping,' which would actually involve listening to your conversations. You’ve just described a call log."
The New York Times report clarified that the details were an "analysis of phone toll records," which "is a common investigative tactic, though there are occasional policy and political debates about when and how such data should be taken. Such toll record information does not include the contents of conversations, which would require a court-approved wiretap."
A "toll record" showed who was called and at what time, but not details about the contents of the call itself, says the laws around the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.
"The subpoena for the phone records was disclosed by several Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee that oversees the FBI," PBS explained in its report. "Grassley said the document memorializing the 'preliminary toll analysis' was produced in response to his request. The investigative step was authorized by a grand jury, the senators said."
The documents show that the calls to the Republicans came from the White House switchboard, which logs every call coming into and going out of the White House.
"Riiiiiight. And Joe Biden never used the autopen," Hawley later responded, attempting to pivot away from his accusation to another one.
"Presumably the logs reflect the seven calls President Trump made to you on Jan. 5 and the morning of Jan. 6 that you don't appear to have returned until after the riot," said Cheney, pasting the records.
Over and over, Trump called Hawley, but the allegedly pro-MAGA senator never picked up the phone.
In 2022, some of the call logs were released publicly; however, a huge chunk was missing. At the time, CREW, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called on the Justice Department to investigate the hours that appeared to be "missing" in the logs.