Former special counsel Jack Smith delivered a devastating retort to the accusation of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that he improperly spied on Republican lawmakers during his investigation and prosecution of President Donald Trump.

Additionally, he turned the tables by pointing out that the first Trump administration had done the exact same thing he did in the course of his investigation.

The controversy stems from a recent report that Smith gathered phone records from certain members of Congress during the investigation of Trump's improper removal of classified information. Republicans immediately went into uproar over this news, with some claiming this was a scandal "worse than Watergate." Smith's lawyers wrote to Grassley, however, this was much less than what Trump loyalists claimed it was.

"A number of people have falsely stated that Mr. Smith 'tapped' Senators’ phones, 'spied' on their communications, or 'surveilled' their conversations," said the letter. "As you know, toll records merely contain telephonic routing information — collected after the calls have taken place — identifying incoming and outgoing call numbers, the time of the calls, and their duration. Toll records are historical in nature, and do not include the content of calls. Wiretapping, by contrast, involves intercepting the telecommunications in real time, which the Special Counsel’s Office did not do."

Telephone toll records are a common thing prosecutors look at, Smith's lawyers pointed out, and nothing out of the ordinary.

"It is well established that obtaining telephone toll records pursuant to a subpoena is a routine and lawful investigative step that does not violate an individual’s expectation of privacy," said the letter. "Indeed, Special Counsel Robert Hur subpoenaed toll records in his investigation of President Biden. During the current Trump administration, the Department of Justice has routinely Trump’s first term, the Justice Department purportedly obtained communications records of two Democratic Members of Congress — Rep. Eric Swalwell and then-Rep. Adam Schiff — and forty-three congressional staffers in connection with an investigation into media leaks. More recently, the Department of Justice used toll records in the prosecution of Senator Menendez."

Lawfare's Roger Parloff called this letter a "devastating" blow to Grassley's accusations on X, .