Jack Smith admitted that judges weren’t made aware his team was seizing Republicans’ phone records when asked to sign off on non-disclosure orders for associated subpoenas, according to a transcript of the ex-special counsel’s deposition obtained by The Post on Wednesday.

Smith claimed to members of the House Judiciary Committee in the Dec. 17 sitdown that keeping the subpoenas hidden — which were part of the FBI’s sprawling Arctic Frost probe into 2020 election interference — was necessary to avoid a “grave risk of obstruction of justice.”

Asked by an unidentified Judiciary Committee questioner whether judges who approved the subpoenas knew they were demanding that phone carriers AT&T and Verizon hand over lawmakers’ call logs, Smith said: “I don’t think we identified that, because I don’t think that was Department policy at the time.”

Judiciary members pushed back that Smith’s team risked infringing on constitutional “speech or debate protections” for lawmakers, around a dozen of whom — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the panel’s chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — had their cell phone metadata taken.

The FBI also surveilled Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) at his congressional office and home before nabbing his cell phone, per unclassified bureau records first obtained by The Post, the only known seizure of a lawmakers’ device during the Arctic Frost investigation overseen by Smith.

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