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Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats want Chairman Chuck Grassley to hand over committee records they say were withheld from the minority before former special counsel Jack Smith testified on September 29, 2026, commit to following Senate rules, and apologize to Smith for what they call personal attacks and accusations of perjury made during the hearing. In an October 7, 2026 letter, the Democrats said they still had not received the records. Republicans have not apologized. Grassley instead publicly called on Smith to apologize over the collection of bank records, and no apology from Grassley was reported in coverage through October 8, 2026.
What Democrats are asking for
The October 7 letter, addressed to Grassley and signed by the committee’s Democratic members, makes three requests. Each one is a separate claim, and each has a different status.
- Produce the withheld records. The Democrats ask Grassley to “immediately provide these and all other documents that you have withheld.” As of October 7, the letter says, the minority still had not received them.
- Commit to following Senate rules. The letter asks for a commitment to “fully comply with Senate rules in the future.” The Democrats’ underlying complaint is that committee members and staff did not see certain material before the hearing. That is their stated position, not a finding by any outside body.
- Apologize to Smith. The letter asks the committee to “apologize to Mr. Smith on behalf of the Committee for the unacceptable personal attacks and false accusations of perjury he faced during this hearing.” The Democrats are describing accusations made by Republicans. They are not asserting that Smith committed perjury.
The records in dispute
The letter identifies two sets of records as the core of the procedural complaint.
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- Notes from an August 17, 2024 call between Smith and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section.
The Democrats say Sens. Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley referred to or displayed records during the hearing that Democratic members and staff had not seen in advance. The letter’s central claim is that the minority was not given a fair opportunity to review material before it was used in public questioning. Republicans have not, in the reporting reviewed, disputed that they used the material; the disagreement is over whether it was shared in time and whether the messages support the claims made about them.
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The basketball exchange
The most heated exchange concerned Schmitt’s accusation that Smith lied about attending an Atlanta Hawks game in Georgia on February 3, 2024. The Democrats’ letter says the messages did not establish the Georgia connection that Schmitt described. KCUR, republishing Missouri Independent reporting dated October 8, 2026, gives a different account of the same episode: Smith recalled attending a University of Maryland women’s basketball game against Iowa in Maryland, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar pointed out that Schmitt had confused the Iowa Hawkeyes with the Atlanta Hawks.
| Point | Claim as stated | Source of the claim |
|---|---|---|
| Smith was at an Atlanta Hawks game in Georgia on February 3, 2024 | Put forward by Schmitt during the hearing | Hearing exchange, as reported by KCUR and the Missouri Independent |
| The messages do not show a Georgia connection | The Democrats’ characterization of the records | October 7 Democratic letter |
| Smith attended a University of Maryland women’s game against Iowa in Maryland | Smith’s recollection | KCUR and Missouri Independent, October 8, 2026 |
| Schmitt confused the Iowa Hawkeyes with the Atlanta Hawks | Klobuchar’s point during the hearing | KCUR and Missouri Independent, October 8, 2026 |
The report does not establish which account of the messages is correct beyond what the messages themselves contain, and the reporting reviewed does not reproduce their full text. Readers should treat the Democrats’ reading of the messages as their interpretation, and the Smith and Klobuchar accounts as statements made in the hearing setting.
Grassley’s response and the status of the apology
KCUR reported that Schmitt called Smith a “total dirtbag” during the hearing and continued to call him a liar and “dirtbag” afterward. Schmitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Grassley responded on X by saying Smith should apologize over the collection of bank records.
A Grassley spokesperson referred reporters to the senator’s September 29 comments. Those comments did not include an apology to Smith. Coverage through October 8, 2026 does not establish whether the requested records were later produced, and it does not show that any apology was made by the committee, its chairman or Schmitt.
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Two framings of the same hearing
The hearing, held September 29, 2026 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, was titled “Oversight of Jack Smith’s Abuse of Authority and the Targeting of Republicans and Related Matters.” The Associated Press described the four-hour session as a partisan dispute. Republicans pressed claims that the Trump prosecutions were politicized, while Democrats defended the legal and factual basis of those cases. The investigations at issue concerned Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The Republican framing
The committee’s Republican account, published on the Judiciary Committee’s site on September 29, 2026, centers on allegations about Smith’s handling of financial information, investigative tactics, classified materials and constitutional safeguards. It reproduces Grassley’s accusations and Smith’s answers. In one exchange, Smith said: “Yes, we acquired financial information. As I sit here right now, I cannot recite to you every subpoena we issued… I can tell you why we issued subpoenas, and it was to conduct a criminal investigation…” These are competing claims in a political hearing, not settled findings.
The Democratic framing
Democrats describe the questioning as a personal attack and a breach of how the committee handles records. Their pre-hearing statement, issued by Ranking Member Dick Durbin, gives the background of the case. It says Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith special counsel in November 2022 to investigate the election effort and the classified documents. It says Smith indicted Trump on four counts in the election case and on 40 counts in the classified-documents case, and that Smith moved to dismiss both cases after Trump’s 2024 reelection, in line with the Justice Department’s position that a sitting president cannot be federally indicted and prosecuted. These are legal-history points as stated in the Democratic statement, not independent findings.
What remains unresolved
- Whether the committee has produced the records the minority requested. The most recent reporting reviewed says they had not been received as of October 7.
- Whether the committee or any Republican member will apologize to Smith. No apology was reported through October 8.
- Whether the messages support the Georgia claim. The Democrats and the report describe them differently, and the full text is not public in the coverage reviewed.
- Whether the subpoena and financial-records allegations hold up. Those remain contested claims from both sides.
Because this is a live dispute, later committee releases or statements may change the picture. The primary documents to check are the Democrats’ October 7, 2026 letter and the Republican majority’s September 29, 2026 hearing release on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s website.
No independent poll, study or neutral statistic measures this controversy, and none is needed to understand the dispute.
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