Arctic Frost was the code name under which the Biden FBI conducted a sweeping, illicit investigation of much of the Republican Party. Arctic Frost was intended as the basis for the criminal case that Special Counsel Jack Smith brought against Donald Trump, who was then out of power, relating to his efforts to “overturn” the 2020 presidential election. That case eventually was dismissed, deservedly so.
On Wednesday, Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, held a press conference at which he disclosed previously-unreported information about Arctic Frost:
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released on Wednesday 197 subpoenas that the Biden administration’s FBI used to seek testimony and documents related to hundreds of Republicans and GOP entities as part of the bureau’s Arctic Frost probe, the precursor to former special counsel Jack Smith’s election investigation.
“Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus,” Grassley said at a press conference. “Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition.”
Normally, a crime is committed and law enforcement tries to find out who did it. In this instance, there was no crime–rather, a fake “investigation” into hundreds of Republicans, in hopes of finding something that could be twisted into an allegation of a crime.
Smith brought two criminal complaints against Trump, both of which were dismissed. Arctic Frost is relevant to the case in which Smith alleged that Trump illegally tried to overturn the result of the 2020 election. Smith explained that case here.
Smith’s complaint was, in my opinion, a bad joke. Trump and his agents certainly did try to reverse the apparent election result in several states, because they believed that result had been obtained by Democratic Party fraud. Whether they were right about that, we will never know, although we do know that several million questionable votes, at a minimum, were cast for Joe Biden. No case on 2020 election fraud was ever litigated on the merits; there was no time for such litigation before Biden was inaugurated.
The problem with Smith’s case against Trump is that Trump and his minions didn’t commit any crimes. They pursued legal remedies, just as Al Gore did in 2000. Like Gore, they failed. But it is not a crime to try. The “crimes” that Smith alleged in his criminal complaint were fictitious, i.e., “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.” As I said, a bad joke.
Arctic Frost was an astonishingly broad infringement of the rights of hundreds of Americans. You can see a sample subpoena, of which nearly 200 were served, here. Here, you can see a Judiciary Committee spreadsheet that shows the entities that were subpoenaed and the individuals and organizations about whom information was sought. The targeted individuals included Harmeet Dhillon, now Assistant Attorney General, and my friend Cleta Mitchell.
Senator Ted Cruz is among those who were targeted. His telephone records were subpoenaed, without his knowledge. He is, properly, hopping mad:
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also raised at the press conference the controversial subpoenas for eight Republican senators’ phone records, which did not include the contents of phone calls but rather details about when calls were place and to whom. Cruz said he was also among the targeted senators, but he said his phone company, AT&T, resisted complying with the request and that AT&T was ordered by a federal judge not to inform Cruz about the request for a year. Grassley said Verizon told him that Cruz’s office’s Verizon landline was also “affected” but did not elaborate.
“We are going to get the answers of every person who signed off on this abuse of power, and mark my words, there will be accountability,” Cruz said, signaling that the senators’ inquiry into Arctic Frost was far from over.
The abuses of the Department of Justice, the FBI and the CIA during the Obama and Biden administrations constitute, together, by far the worst scandal in American history. Whether these abuses constituted crimes, I do not know. But I hope that now that President Trump has cleaned house at DOJ, serious consideration is being given to legal sanctions that might be imposed on James Comey, Merrick Garland, John Brennan, Jack Smith, and others.
