High Court Allows January 6 Committee to Obtain AZ GOP Head's Phone Records

Steven D. Schwinn, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

The Supreme Court today rejected an attempt by Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, to stop the January 6 Committee from obtaining her phone records around the time of the insurrection.

The ruling means that Ward's phone provider must turn the records over. (The subpoena seeks telephone numbers, not the content of the conversations.)

The Court didn't provide an explanation for denying Ward's application. Justice Thomas and Alito would have granted it, but they provided no explanation, either. (That's not unusual for this kind of request. The Court often issues a decision on an emergency application without an explanation.)

The Committee subpoenaed Ward's provider after Ward, who played an instrumental role in various efforts to reverse the election and prevent the peaceful transition of power, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when she testified to the Committee earlier this year. Ward then sued, seeking to quash the subpoena. The district court and the Ninth Circuit both rejected her motion; today the Supreme Court rejected it, too.

Ward argued that the subpoena violated her First Amendment associational rights under Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. In that case, the Supreme Court struck a California requirement that charitable organizations that solicit contributions in the state must disclose to the state attorney general the identities of their major donors. The Court applied "exacting scrutiny," and ruled that the disclosure regime wasn't sufficiently tailored to meet the state's asserted interests. Ward claimed that "exacting scrutiny" should apply to the Committee's subpoena, too, as a form of compelled disclosure that interfered with her associational rights.

The Ninth Circuit flatly rejected that argument. The court said that Americans for Prosperity didn't even apply, because unlike the disclosure requirement in that case, the Committee's subpoena was targeted at a particular person, Ward, for particular and relevant information to the Committee's investigation, and because Ward made no allegation that disclosure would lead to any harassment (which would interfere with Ward's associational rights). The court noted that the subpoena sought "to uncover those with whom [Ward] communicated in connection with" the January 6 attack, not members of a political party. It also noted that Ward's theory would allow anyone to "raise a First Amendment objection to any subpoena for records of calls that included discussions of politics--or, presumably, of 'social, economic, religious, [or] cultural' matters. (Narcotics traffickers, or anyone else who might face such subpoenas, would be well advised to make at least a few calls to their preferred political party.)"

The court held that even if Americans for Prosperity's "exacting scrutiny" applied, the subpoena met it. That's because it's "narrowly tailored" to get only the information that the Committee needs, and because the Committee already tried to get this information from Ward when she testified, but she invoked the Fifth.

Judge Ikuta dissented from the Ninth Circuit ruling.

Ward's application to the Court is here; the Committee's opposition is here.