Verizon Mindlessly Handed Senators’ Phone Records Over to Jack Smith

Earlier this month, the United States Senate recently witnessed a masterclass in executive evasion and corporate cowardice. In a heated Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) dismantled the defense offered by Verizon’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel for its Consumer division, Chris Miller. The subject of the interrogation was Verizon’s inexplicable decision to hand over the private phone records of several Republican U.S. Senators to Special Counsel Jack Smith (pictured above) without so much as a whisper of legal resistance.

While the “Arctic Frost” subpoenas from Smith’s office were met with immediate and successful legal pushback from competitors like AT&T, Verizon chose a different path: total capitulation. As Senator Kennedy aptly put it during the exchange, Verizon “sucked it up like a Hoover Deluxe,” failing to notify the targeted members of Congress, failing to file a motion to quash, and failing to appeal the orders. This surrender of customer privacy to a politicized investigation is not just a legal failure; it is a symptom of a deeper rot in Verizon’s corporate governance—a rot that NLPC intends to address at this spring’s annual meeting.

Senator Hagerty Takes Aim at Verizon’s Betrayal

This “rolling over” is not just a matter of Senate floor rhetoric; it has now triggered a regulatory action. On February 9, 2026, Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against Verizon, marking the first legal action taken by a member of Congress in response to the Arctic Frost overreach. Hagerty, a long-time Verizon customer, accused the company of violating federal law by disclosing Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) without a fight.

A Tale of Two Carriers

The contrast between Verizon and its peers is staggering. As reported by The Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony confirming that while Verizon quietly complied with Smith’s demands, AT&T stood its ground. When Smith’s team sought the records of sitting U.S. Senators, AT&T questioned the subpoenas and pushed back on the grounds of constitutional overreach. Faced with actual resistance, the Special Counsel’s office backed off.

Verizon, however, did nothing. According to the New York Post, Kennedy slammed Verizon for not even attempting to protect its customers’ data from what many view as “lawfare” against political opponents. NLPC has previously warned about Jack Smith’s subpoenas, noting that the lack of corporate spine at Verizon essentially turned the company into an arm of the Department of Justice.

Where was Dan Schulman?

One of the most telling moments of the hearing was the absence of Verizon’s recently appointed CEO, Dan Schulman. Kennedy noted that the committee specifically requested Schulman’s appearance, yet he sent a subordinate from a divisional legal department instead — not even the company’s top legal counsel. Kennedy speculated on Schulman’s absence, suggesting that perhaps the CEO was “too tired” from “counting his money.”

Schulman is no stranger to NLPC’s scrutiny. We have criticized his leadership for years, dating back to his tenure at PayPal, where he pioneered the brand of “cancel culture” capitalism that has now infected Verizon. It was Schulman who famously cancelled PayPal’s expansion in North Carolina in 2016 over the state’s “bathroom bill,” a move that prioritized gender-identity politics over the company’s fiduciary duties and its 400 potential employees in Charlotte. This history of politicizing corporate operations has followed him to Verizon, where he has been on the board since 2018 before his undeserved elevation to CEO.

A Legacy of Litigation and Fines

The “Arctic Frost” surrender is merely the latest entry in a long rap sheet of Verizon’s failures. During the hearing, Senator Kennedy highlighted several concrete instances of Verizon’s legal and ethical lapses:

• GSA Fraud: Verizon was forced to pay $93.5 million to settle claims that it overcharged the General Services Administration by failing to provide contractually required discounts.

• FCC Privacy Violations: The company faced a $46.9 million fine from the FCC for illegally sharing the real-time location data of its customers with third parties without consent.

• ERISA Violations: Verizon paid $30 million to settle litigation involving the mismanagement of employee pension funds, essentially “cheating” its own workers.

• Politicized Training: NLPC has previously slammed Verizon for forcing employees to undergo training based on Critical Race Theory, including concepts like “white fragility” and “intersectionality.”

When confronted with these numbers, Miller’s response was a mix of ignorance and denial, claiming he was “not familiar” with major settlements or the company’s implementation of racial and gender quotas—practices that are blatantly illegal under current civil rights law.

The Path Forward: Independent Oversight

The pattern is clear: under a combined Chairman and CEO structure, Verizon has become a politicized entity that prioritizes “woke” activism and government compliance over shareholder value and customer privacy. Schulman’s failed tenure at PayPal, where the stock languished as he focused on social agendas, should have been a warning. Instead, Verizon doubled down.

This is why NLPC is presenting a shareholder proposal for an Independent Chair policy at this year’s annual meeting. We believe that the roles of CEO and Chairman must be separated to ensure genuine oversight. A CEO who is also his own boss, especially one with Schulman’s track record of failed “cancel culture” activism, is a recipe for the kind of “malpractice” Senator Kennedy identified.

Verizon’s previous CEO, Hans Vestberg, was also Chairman, and was criticized for poor performance as the company fell behind T-Mobile in key metrics. Schulman currently only holds the CEO position, which is bad enough, so he should not be also granted the top Board role, ever.

Elevating Schulman—a man whose primary legacy is corporate grandstanding—is not the solution. Verizon needs an independent board chair who will prioritize the law, the Constitution, and the shareholders over the demands of politicized Special Counsels and radical social agendas. It is time for Verizon’s leadership to stop “hiding their heads in a bag” (as Sen. Kennedy put it) and start answering to the people who actually own the company.