It started with a curious FedEx envelope from AT&T I received last Thursday morning — one I didn’t think much about until I opened it and found a bombshell. It contained a letter and other documents from AT&T informing me that my personal phone records from the 2020 election cycle had been quietly harvested by the federal government years ago, and I was never even told.
I am not the only one. I am simply one of the latest to discover that I was caught in the wide, secret net cast by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Prominent figures such as Kash Patel and Susie Wiles have already spoken out about being targeted by these stealth subpoenas, but my notification, and those sent to other Georgians I know, prove that this wasn’t just about the high-profile names in Trump’s inner circle. It was a digital dragnet designed to map the associations of anyone — including private analysts like me — who dared to address the irregularities in the 2020 election.
The notification I received was triggered by a new subpoena from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley. This is oversight in its purest form: Congress is now subpoenaing the subpoenas. They are forcing telecommunications companies to reveal the identities of the hundreds of Americans whose privacy was breached under the “Arctic Frost” codename — a Biden-era Department of Justice operation that operated in the shadows of nondisclosure orders.
The ‘Crime’ of Data Analysis
As an election data analyst in Georgia, my “crime” was simply doing my work. During the window covered by the subpoena — November 2020 to January 2021 — I was busy analyzing voter data that suggested we had systemic irregularities in the 2020 election. My research, which I was prepared to present as an expert witness in the Trump v. Raffensperger lawsuit, identified as many as 35,000 unqualified voters who had cast ballots in counties where they no longer lived, a clear violation of Georgia residency laws.
That lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed on Jan. 7, 2021. The timing was no accident; with the electoral certification completed on Jan. 6, the hearing date had been pushed back by the courts until it became legally moot. The dismissal wasn’t an admission of error; it was a recognition that the clock had run out.
But the data and corroborating evidence I continued to collect didn’t go away. I submitted those findings in May 2021 to the Georgia State Election Board in a formal complaint, only to watch Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office attempt to memory-hole the very residency laws I was citing. For five years, that case and that evidence have been suppressed, but the relatively new and more election integrity-minded board is currently working to finally get cases like mine put on their agenda.
Mapping the Network
It is clear to me why Jack Smith wanted my records. He wasn’t looking for a crime; he was looking for a network. By obtaining my toll records — who I called, when I called them, and for how long — the DOJ could map my communications with other data analysts and activists across the country, Trump’s legal team, and perhaps even a call I had with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
The most galling part is the secrecy. Smith’s team utilized nondisclosure orders to ensure that AT&T could not notify me of their subpoena. Had Donald Trump not been elected president, and had the Senate not launched its investigation into Arctic Frost, I would have gone to my grave never knowing the federal government had rifled through my private life.
Not Hiding
I have already responded to the Senate Committee, and unlike the Biden DOJ, I have nothing to hide. I am not objecting to their request because the privacy violation has already occurred. If my records can serve as the “Exhibit A” that proves Smith’s overreach, then the public deserves to see them.
This isn’t just about me, and it isn’t just about 2020. This is about whether we will allow a permanent “special counsel” class to operate as a secret police force, targeting political opponents and their analysts with the click of a button and a gag order. The Arctic Frost revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. It is time for the hunters to become the hunted.
Mark Davis is President of Data Productions, Inc., has been working with voter data since 1986, and is a member of the Georgia Republican Party’s Election Confidence Task Force. He has served as an analyst and expert witness in court cases involving disputed elections seven times over the last 23 years, and has been invited to offer testimony before subcommittees of the Georgia General Assembly three times since 2020. Follow him @MarkDavisGOP on X.
