Former special counsel Jack Smith’s office sought to map a vast web of contacts between President Donald Trump’s most vocal Republican allies in Congress and key players in his bid to subvert the results of the 2020 election, according to newly released records of the Smith-led investigation.

Emails from January 2023 circulated among Smith’s deputies show how top GOP lawmakers communicated directly with individuals later identified by Smith as Trump’s co-conspirators in his election interference plot, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.

Those contacts became the Smith office’s justification for pursuing subpoenas of phone logs for more than a dozen Republican officials. That includes former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who were previously known to be of interest to Smith’s investigators — as well as then-Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, who is now Trump’s head of the EPA and is among other lawmakers not previously known to be under Smith’s microscope.

A spokesperson for Zeldin did not immediately provide a response to a request for comment.

These Republicans and others are featured in the materials released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, who has been leading a probe into Smith’s work. The Iowa Republican made the documents public to help support the party’s widely held position that Smith was politically motivated in his pursuit of criminal charges against Trump during the Biden administration — for efforts to overturn the election and his mishandling of classified documents.

“They were not aiming low. They were trying to take out everyone on the other side,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), whose data Smith’s office sought to obtain via subpoena, said Tuesday.

Cruz delivered the remarks while presiding over a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing comparing Smith’s investigations into Trump to the Watergate scandal that took down former President Richard Nixon and led to new rules cracking down on government corruption.

But the newly public documents also offer a more expansive picture of who Smith’s team believed might have had information that could bolster their probe into the campaign to undermine the 2020 election results that culminated in a deadly riot.

The special counsel’s office found that Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) had communicated with Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who is now director of the CIA. A spokesperson for Ratcliffe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zeldin corresponded with Meadows and Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who was a close Trump ally in the effort. Cruz had calls with Meadows, Eastman and Ratcliffe and was one of several senators who received a call from Giuliani on Jan. 6.

Those contacts explain Smith’s interest in obtaining subpoenas for the phone logs for a dozen current and former Republican members of Congress, which his team said would be used to “establish logical evidentiary inferences regarding Trump and his surrogates’ actions and intent.”

The list of potential subpoena targets also includes Arizona Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. Spokespeople for Biggs, Gosar and Perry did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to the documents, Smith’s team methodically reviewed information provided in a report produced by the Democratic-led House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks, suggesting a nexus between the two parallel inquiries.

New documents released by Grassley Tuesday also revealed the scale and scope of Smith’s scrutiny of Kash Patel, a longtime Trump ally who now serves as FBI director. Patel was previously established to have been a target of the special counsel’s investigation, but it was not known that Smith sought to obtain Patel’s phone and text message logs spanning two years.

A spokesperson for national FBI headquarters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The materials also provide new details about the backchanneling between former Vice President Mike Pence and Smith’s team regarding Pence’s grand jury testimony, and the efforts investigators took to screen out privileged information before they accessed devices they seized from targets of their probe.

At the Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Democrats continued to defend Smith’s work and urged Republicans to schedule a public hearing with the former special counsel.

“Apparently when the Trump DOJ does it, it’s nothing new; when Jack Smith does it, it’s a modern Watergate,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights. “With Patel, it’s obvious why Jack Smith was looking at him.”

Grassley has said Smith will receive an invitation to address the full Judiciary panel in the coming months, following testimony the attorney gave to the House Judiciary Committee late last year.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he plans to take a “hard look” at the emerging DHS funding deal but that he is unlikely to be “happy” with any agreement Republicans strike with Democrats.

It was the first time the president has weighed in publicly on the brewing agreement to fund the agency, as the White House signaled earlier Tuesday that the yet-to-be-finalized solution “seems to be acceptable.” A White House official cautioned that talks are ongoing to fund DHS more than five weeks after money lapsed.

“Well I’m going to look at it, and we’re gonna take a good hard look at it. I want to support Republicans. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don’t want to have voter ID, they don’t want to have proof of citizenship, they don’t want to do anything about men playing in women’s sports,” the president said from the Oval Office after Markwayne Mullin was sworn in to lead DHS.

The president also said he didn’t want to comment on the deal until he reviews it, adding that “they are getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”

Trump’s comments leave room for him to ultimately reject or support the emerging framework. Conservatives, who are skeptical of the potential agreement because it leaves out parts of ICE, are strategizing behind the scenes, according to three people with knowledge of their efforts granted anonymity to discuss them. Senate Republicans, in particular, are bracing for their right flank to try to get in Trump’s ear to tank the deal or demand changes, two of the people said.

And House GOP leadership is privately panning the forming agreement, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. Some members argue it kills their leverage to force Democrats to fully fund DHS — and risks leaving them with a GOP revolt.

Speaker Mike Johnson, asked if he supported the forming deal in a brief interview Tuesday leaving the Capitol, replied: “I haven’t seen the details.”

Asked if it could get through the House, Johnson said: “Stay tuned.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters he hadn’t seen details of the forming deal yet but argued Democrats should fully fund DHS. He also declined to say whether the possible deal to leave out some ICE enforcement money could pass the House amid a GOP hard-liner rebellion.

“Those that are contorting themselves to do this, it’s just beyond stupid,” House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said. “Just fund DHS, right?”

House GOP leaders are planning to hold a third vote on the stalled DHS funding bill that fully funds ICE on Thursday in an attempt to pressure Democrats.

Republican senators met with the president at the White House late Monday after he publicly rejected DHS funding without the SAVE America Act alongside it. The senators left the White House and began working on the framework, which includes an effort to pass some portions of the SAVE America Act through reconciliation.

Mullin said in the Oval Office that Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is “committed to making sure we get reconciliation through.”

“Because there’s nothing more important than the SAVE America Act,” Mullin said. “I mean, that’s what the American people want.”

Alan Armstrong was sworn in Tuesday to temporarily fill the seat left vacant by Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s move to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

The Republican energy executive took the oath of office from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) just hours after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced Armstrong as his choice to succeed Mullin.

Armstrong will serve until a successor is elected in November. Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) is running and is viewed as the favorite after securing President Donald Trump’s endorsement.