Washington is being rocked by a fresh scandal that makes all contemporary ones, including the Biden Autopen Presidency, pale by comparison.
Whistleblowers from the DOJ began coming forward to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, as early as January this year with a tale so outrageous it almost defied belief, Grassley told a press conference.
It turned out their reports only scratched the surface.
The whistleblowers described a secret DOJ investigation under former President Joe Biden and AG Merrick Garland called Operation Arctic Frost. The operation mobilized the government’s massive resources in a probe that targeted Donald Trump and over 400 Republicans, including congressmen and hundreds of individuals whose only offense was being a Trump supporter.
Sen. Chuck Grassley released a memo from former FBI Director Christopher Wray to former Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into the Trump Campaign in April 2022, for allegedly attempting to interfere with Congress’ certification of the 2020 election
Led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, Arctic Frost soon morphed into an ever-expanding investigation that used the unchecked power of the DOJ and the FBI in a sweeping surveillance operation of unprecedented scope, Fox News reported.
It allegedly spied not only on Donald Trump but on Republican members of Congress, prominent Republican-aligned groups and hundreds of law-abiding Americans not charged with any crime.
Artic Frost was “a vehicle enabling FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors to improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus,” Senator Chuck Grassley announced at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
In a Truth Social post several weeks earlier, President Trump referenced new documents highlighting Operation Arctic Frost, saying they showed “conclusively that [former FBI director] Christopher Wray, Jack Smith, [former AG] Merrick Garland, [Deputy AG] Lisa Monaco, and other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden administration, signed off on” the top-secret operation.
197 Subpoenas
“Last week, Senator Johnson and I made public 197 Jack Smith subpoenas consisting of almost 2,000 pages of records. These records show the Biden DOJ and FBI expanded Arctic Frost to target over 430 Republican groups and individuals,” Grassley said. “This includes Republican Members of Congress and some of our colleagues on this very Committee.”
“Arctic Frost was a runaway train. To date, we’ve learned Jack Smith subpoenaed the phone records of at least 13 Members of Congress, including 11 Senators. I expect there’ll be more,” Grassley said.
He labeled the massive probe by Smith a “fishing expedition,” describing how, in May of 2023, Smith slapped subpoenas against Verizon and AT&T, ordering them to turn over the phone records, text messages and voice mail of those under investigation.
A federal judge named James Boasberg then imposed a gag order, commanding the companies to conceal the subpoenas from the parties under investigation. Verizon ultimately provided Smith’s team with telephone toll records of eight sitting Republican senators.
The Iowa senator vowed that his committee wouldn’t rest until accountability measures were imposed on those responsible for what he called “an egregious abuse of power.”
“The FBI unit that started Arctic Frost has been dismantled. Many agents who were part of the investigation have been fired. And deservedly so. Accountability measures are still ongoing and will continue,” Grassley pledged.
‘One Mission: Stop Donald Trump’
In a blistering interview on Fox News, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for a full investigation into the weaponization of the government, saying Arctic Frost was “worse than Watergate” [an explosive scandal in the 70s that led to President Nixon’s resignation].
He asserted the investigation was launched with “one mission: stop Donald Trump.”
Cruz detailed the shocking reach of the investigation, stating that Smith “launched a dragnet the scope of which has never been seen,” issuing “at least 197 subpoenas directed at over 430 individuals and organizations.”
“Merrick Garland was a fundamentally corrupt attorney general. Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor,” Cruz said. “This was a political enemies list from the beginning. An extraordinary abuse of power.”
Cruz was particularly incensed that the subpoenas came with a judicial “nondisclosure” order, signed by Judge Boasberg, that forbade telephone carriers and other companies from notifying the senators about the subpoenas for at least a year.
Boasberg’s orders enabled DOJ prosecutors to contact a wide variety of cellphone companies, banks, individuals and media companies, asking for Republicans’ cellphone communications data, banking records and emails, the Washington Times reported.
Boasberg justified the nondisclosure orders by stating there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the senators would “destroy or tamper with evidence” on their phones if they found out they were being tracked. Senator Cruz rejected these suspicions as “unfounded, absolutely absurd.”
All of the targets, he noted, were Republicans or Republican-aligned organizations, including the Republican National Committee, the Republican Attorneys General Association, Conservative Partnership Institute, Citizens United and the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
Several targets included presidential adviser Stephen Miller, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, according to a document obtained by Fox News.
Newsweek said it had in its possession an unclassified document listing eight Republican senators whose phone records had been monitored and analyzed by Arctic Frost: Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee), Josh Hawley (Missouri), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Tommy Tuberville (Alabama), Ron Johnson (Wis), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), and Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), along with Republican representative Mike Kelly (PA).
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced last week that during the Arctic Frost investigation, special counsel Jack Smith “seized President Trump’s cellphone used during his first term and combed through his call logs.
“In addition, Smith subpoenaed all of President Trump’s personal phone records. We must put an end this kind of government weaponization in America,” Bondi said.
A Judge’s Brazen Overreach
Sen. Cruz called for the House of Representatives to impeach Judge Boasberg, accusing him of overreach; of becoming a “partisan crusader” who “joined with Jack Smith in the mission to try to stop Donald Trump from being reelected.”
Critics have pointed out that Boasberg’s secret snooping likely violated a clear federal statute that requires disclosure to the Senate when spying on a senator.
The radical Obama-appointed judge garnered notoriety earlier this year for trying to block President Trump from deporting violent gang members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan crime gang, under the Alien Enemies Act.
“Based on his irresponsible order to turn planes full of Tren de Aragua terrorists around while they were flying over the ocean, lawlessly exposing an ongoing military operation and endangering American lives, Boasberg deserved impeachment even prior to the Arctic Frost revelations,” wrote conservative activist Mike Davis in a Fox News op-ed.
Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, last week filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg, saying Boasberg had “weaponized the judiciary against critics of the Biden administration, is unfit for office and should be impeached.”
To continue the impeachment process, the House Judiciary Committee will investigate the charges and draft articles of impeachment. Then it will require a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives and move to the Senate where currently, the breakdown is 53 Republicans to 47 Democrats.
Once the articles of impeachment reach the Senate, the senators will hold a trial. If a two-thirds majority votes in favor of impeachment, Boasberg will be removed from his post.
Senators Confront Telecom Company That Surrendered Their Info
After learning that the Biden DOJ’s Arctic Frost probe had subpoenaed their phone records, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Sen. Rick Scott took forceful action, the New York Post reported.
Jordan summoned Smith for testimony to explain the spying on GOP lawmakers. In addition, he fired off letters to two telecom giants last Tuesday, demanding they furnish all communications related to former special counsel Jack Smith and his former team.
Sen. Rick Scott turned the spotlight on Verizon, demanding that the telecom company explain its decision to release cellphone data. These questions are not only for myself but on behalf of the millions of Americans who believe their data is safe with Verizon,” the senator wrote.
The Florida senator only recently learned, in the wake of Sen. Grassley’s revelations, that his data was targeted and that Verizon failed to notify him or make any effort to protect his data from the “Arctic Frost” probe.
“The Biden administration’s secretive surveillance of Congress not only represented a desecration of our constitutional separation of powers, but it also appears to have violated federal law,” said Scott.
In a letter to Verizon last Tuesday, the senator demanded the company explain why it did not file a motion to quash a subpoena for his phone records, and what disciplinary measures were taken against those complicit in releasing data. He gave the company a Nov. 17 deadline to respond.
Verizon “appears to have rolled over and complied with the unlawful subpoena and cover-up,” complying with a court gag order,” Scott said in the letter to Verizon.
AT&T, by contrast, refused to comply, Scott noted in the same letter. Their legal counsel refused to comply with the subpoena, citing protection under the Speech and Debate Clause of Article I of the Constitution.
In its response to Sen. Scott, Verizon said it “had no choice but to comply” because a court ordered it not to tell anyone. The company’s vice president hastened to add that it was “actively working with members of Congress” to furnish all requested documents, and that in the future, a Justice Department subpoena would be handled only by senior management.
Repercussions from Sen. Grassley’s disclosures about Arctic Frost also reverberated across the legal community. The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed a FOIA request, Tuesday, “demanding every record related to the DOJ’s surveillance campaign against the legislative branch.”
ACLJ reported that it was filing the request on behalf of the eight senators and one representative who were targeted by project Arctic Frost.
“When the executive branch spies on the legislative branch, it not only threatens the constitutional separation of powers. It also confirms that the Biden-Garland Justice Department was targeting political opponents under the guise of law enforcement,” the FOIA letter said.
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The Non-crime of Objecting to a Presidential Election
“We have seen no evidence that the individuals targeted by Arctic Frost participated in any crimes that occurred at the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021,” wrote conservative activist Mike Davis in a Fox News op-ed.
Operation Arctic Frost, he pointed out, “was predicated on the non-crime of objecting to a presidential election.”
“Democrats lodged similar objections in 1969, 2001, 2005 and, most infamously, in 2017 when they cited the (now discredited) Steele Dossier to attempt to overturn President Trump’s victory,” the author argued. “Yet, none faced charges.”
Objecting to electors is a right that is protected by the First Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the op-ed explained. “It was eminently reasonable for Members of Congress—who have the responsibility of certifying election results—to lodge inquiries about the fairness of the 2020 election.”
Trump’s critics contend that his campaign’s strategy of submitting alternate electors in states facing lawsuits over alleged voting and ballot-counting irregularities, amounted to a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
Special Counsel Smith called the alternate electors sent by the Trump team “fake electors,” arguing that by certifying these states’ elections for Trump, they were deceiving Congress and committing fraud.
Pending Lawsuits Might Have Posed a Game-changer
Yet, some of the lawsuits still pending at the time raised serious challenges that, if upheld, could have disqualified election results in key states, or could have delayed certification of election results until new counts were in.
Had any of the lawsuits prevailed, some states might have been compelled to repeat the voting process—potentially changing local and national outcomes.
As is well known, the lawsuits failed— often because the courts, wary of overturning a presidential election, overwhelmingly declined to intervene.
To take one notable example, a lawsuit filed by Texas AG Ken Paxton, and supported by AGs in 17 states as well as by over 100 congressmen, argued that local election officials in the battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had exploited fear of the Covid pandemic to radically alter election laws, over the protests of GOP leaders in the state.
These actions usurped the Constitutionally-mandated authority of the respective state legislatures to oversee election law, the lawsuit argued.
Party leaders in the battleground states allegedly took the license to flood millions of citizens with unlawful ballot applications—including mail-in and absentee ballots—often with “chain of custody absent,” and voting deadlines that were ignored or unilaterally extended.
These actions flouted statutory requirements as to how voter ballots are to be evaluated and counted, and opened to the door to potential election fraud on a scale one can only guess at.
Like many others, the Texas lawsuit was rejected by the Supreme Court—not on the merits because the case wasn’t even heard, but for “lack of standing” (in plain terms: “This isn’t your fight.”)
Lack of standing was the most common rationale cited by courts when dismissing election‑fraud lawsuits, which many feel was merely a way of sidestepping a very controversial, hot-button issue.
The Biden Justice Department went on to bring criminal charges against Trump campaign officials for appointing alternate electors, and against Trump himself for trying to “overturn the election.”
Charges were also brought against some of the electors themselves, with several singled out for indictment and prosecution. [Trump has since pardoned them all. His own case was dropped by Special Counsel Smith after Trump won the presidency.]
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States Resist Federal Requests for Voter Data
In the post Jan. 6, 2021climate, anyone who questioned the fairness of the 2020 election risked being accused of supporting the Capitol rioters, who were being convicted one after another of “insurrection” and served with jail sentences.
Even hinting that the election might have been rigged triggered intense backlash. The only permissible way one could mention such a notion was to preface the statement with a dismissive qualifier as standard practice in the media, such as “he ‘falsely,’ ‘baselessly,’ ‘fraudulently,’ or ‘deceptively’ claimed…”
Today, even while not as strictly censored, the environment is still highly polarized and voicing deeply unpopular ideas risks provoking harsh criticism or accusations of being a “misinformation spreader.” This was obvious from the way many states have balked at requests from the Justice Department in August and September to turn over their full voter rolls for federal government review.
It is widely recognized that the voter rolls in many states are filled with inaccuracies, duplicates, the names of dead people and the names of people who are no longer residents of the state.
The government explained that it wants to ensure that states are complying with federal voting laws; that only eligible voters are registered, that dead voters, non-citizens and duplicates have been removed from the rolls, and any other irregularities that can interfere with a fair election are screened out.
But when asked for their voter rolls, many states reacted with anger and indignation as if they had been accused of election fraud. The media has ramped up this resistance, playing on fears of the government discovering serious flaws in the voter rolls and voting machines.
“The Trump administration and its allies have launched a multipronged effort to gather data on voters and inspect voting equipment, sparking concern among local and state election officials about federal interference ahead of the 2026 midterms,” the Washington Post warned darkly.
By late September, only about 11 states had complied. With multiple states continuing to ignore the government’s directive, the DOJ announced the filing of federal lawsuits against six states — California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania — for failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists upon request.
“Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in an online posting: “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”
