Author: alaskaadmin

By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

The FBI searched the cellphone records of Republican Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan and seven other U.S. senators and a member of the U.S. House as part of its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a newly released document shows.

The call logs cover several days during and around the insurrection, when rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to support then-incumbent President Donald Trump, who falsely claimed to have won reelection in 2020.

The logs do not show that the FBI obtained phone call recordings, only that an investigating agent was interested in who the senators were talking to, when they talked, how long they talked, and where the callers were. The document, released this week by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, does not say why those senators were identified in particular and it does not say whether any investigative leads resulted from the records.

According to a news release from the committee, the FBI sought and obtained data about the senators’ phone use in the days before, on and after the Jan. 6 insurrection, from Jan. 4 through Jan. 7, 2021. 

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Trump in 2023 for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, but the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation abandoned that case after Trump was re-elected in 2024. Department policy says that sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution, and after the 2021 insurrection, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision limiting a president’s liability for conduct while in office.

Asked whether Sullivan had any contact with people who participated in or organized the riot at the U.S. Capitol, Devyn Shea, a spokesperson for Sullivan, said, “absolutely not.”

In a written statement, Sullivan called the FBI investigation “an absolute outrage.”

“We’ve just learned the Biden FBI was engaged in what appears to be an unprecedented fishing expedition against at least nine sitting Republican members of Congress — none of whom were under any type of investigation — surveilling our personal cell phone calls with family members, staff and colleagues. This is a new low in the political weaponization of the Justice Department,” Sullivan’s statement said.

The other seven senators were Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) was also on the FBI list.

Some senators, including Hawley and Tuberville, voted to object to the certification of the electoral results of the 2020 election. 

Sullivan voted to support the certification of the election, and in a statement the day after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, he called the event “sad” and “dispiriting.”

All have been supporters of Trump and his policies; in office, Sullivan has been a reliable vote for the president and his agenda.