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Returning a Congressman’s Seized Phone
Returning a Congressman’s Seized Phone
Justice Department Returns a Sitting Congressman’s Seized Phone and Ends Its Investigation Without Charges
On Aug. 2, 2024, one day after he won his Republican primary, FBI agents seized U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles’s personal cell phone outside his Maury County home. A second federal warrant had already been issued for his Google email account.
Both were part of an active federal criminal investigation into his financial disclosure and campaign finance reports, and the seized phone and email were central to it.
His lawyers said the phone held communications about his work in Congress, and the government planned to have its own team review them. Ogles argued the Constitution protects those communications.
Key Facts
Phone returned: The FBI gave it back on May 15, 2026.
19 months: Investigators were barred from reviewing the phone and email while the motions were pending.
No charges: The Justice Department closed its investigation.
The Case at a Glance
- Aug. 2, 2024: One day after his primary win, FBI agents seize Rep. Andy Ogles’s personal cell phone. A second warrant covers his Google email account.
- Sept. 3, 2024: Litson and co-counsel file emergency motions for return of property under the Speech or Debate Clause.
- Sept. 25, 2024: The court bars the government from reviewing the phone and email until it rules.
- May 5, 2026: After the Justice Department agrees to return or destroy the seized material, Ogles withdraws the motions.
- May 15, 2026: The FBI returns the phone. The investigation ends with no charges.
The Seizure
The Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause says members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other Place” for their legislative work.
- In Washington, D.C.: The federal appeals court has read that protection to cover a member’s legislative records, including what sits on a phone.
- Elsewhere: Other federal appeals courts have read it more narrowly.
Four days after the seizure, Ogles’s legal team told the Justice Department that the phone held protected legislative material. According to the defense’s motion, the department refused to let Ogles identify and set aside those materials first. It insisted on reviewing the contents through its own internal “taint team.”
The Legal Challenge
Ogles turned to Litson PLLC and a team of co-counsel to keep his legislative communications out of the government’s hands.
Filing in Federal Court
On Sept. 3, 2024, Litson and co-counsel filed an emergency motion for return of property in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g) and the Speech or Debate Clause.
- The motion covered both warrants.
- It asked for the return of privileged legislative materials only.
- It argued that Ogles was entitled to screen his own legislative materials before any government agent saw them, the procedure the D.C. appeals court has required when the executive branch searches a member of Congress.
Protecting the Phone While the Court Decided
The government told the court it had not reviewed the contents. On Sept. 25, 2024, the court ordered that the government “shall not” review the contents of the email account or the phone until it ruled on the motions.
Briefing was complete by October 2024, and the motions waited for a decision. By January 2026, the government told the court the parties had been awaiting a ruling for “more than 14 months.”
19 months with the phone and email off-limits.
The court’s order barring review held the entire time.
The Resolution
In May 2026, according to the defense’s notice to the court, the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said it would “promptly return or destroy the property and information obtained pursuant to the respective search warrants.” Ogles withdrew his motions on May 5, and the court terminated them the next day.
On May 15, 2026, the FBI returned the phone. The court later noted that the government “also decided not to pursue any further criminal investigation.” No charges were ever filed.
The phone fight is what stalled the case. Litson’s motion kept investigators away from the seized phone and email for 19 months. Without that evidence, the larger investigation went nowhere, and the government closed it.
Congressman Ogles was right on the law from day one, but he had to fight for almost two years at great personal and financial expense to prove it. The government’s decision to return the phone and destroy the materials confirms what we’ve said all along: those communications should never have been seized in the first place. There’s a hard constitutional line around investigations of sitting members of Congress, and this case shows why that line exists.
Alex Little, Managing Partner, Litson PLLC
What This Outcome Means
Searches of a sitting member of Congress are rare, and the rules for them are still unsettled in much of the country. The Ogles matter shows how quickly asserting the Speech or Debate Clause can protect a member’s communications while a court sorts out the law.
It also shows how a fight over one piece of evidence can decide a whole investigation. The court order barring review held for 19 months, and the government never got to use what it seized. In the end, it returned the property and closed the investigation without charges.
Read the May 2026 press release.
The Litson Team
Alex Little led Litson’s work on the matter, drawing on his experience as a former federal prosecutor. Zack Lawson and JR Glover did much of the research and drafting on the emergency motion and the reply brief.
Litson worked alongside co-counsel John Rowley and John Irving of SECIL Law PLLC and David Raybin of Raybin & Weissman, P.C.
Motions terminated May 6, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nos. 3:24-mj-04250 and 3:24-mj-04276.
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