New documents expose Biden DOJ’s ‘fishing expedition’ into Trump, Republicans during 2024 race

Jaw-dropping whistleblower documents made public Wednesday show the Biden Justice Department secretly cast a massive, investigatory net over the Republican Party, and much of the surveillance appeared to be triggered by President Trump’s announcement of his third presidential campaign in November 2022.

At a press conference in the Capitol on Wednesday, furious Republican senators lined up to denounce what an unidentified whistleblower had uncovered: Special prosecutor Jack Smith and his legal team, under operation Arctic Frost, issued 197 subpoenas seeking records and communications of more than 430 individuals and organizations, all of whom appeared to be Republican.

Those targeted included Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner and Lara Trump, who all worked in the first Trump administration or the Trump campaign. Additional subpoenas were issued to individuals and businesses seeking statistical data and analysis relating to Republican fundraising and individual communications with a slew of national media outlets, including CBS and Fox News. The phone records of 11 members of Congress were secretly subpoenaed.

“Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican. “Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition.”

The whistleblower documents expose the zeal within the Smith investigation to “nail” Mr. Trump with criminal wrongdoing more than two years after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and shortly after the launch of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

In a March 2023 email exchange about the riot, Mr. Smith’s deputy, J.P. Cooney, asked Mr. Smith, “Can we do some work to nail down Trump’s role in this?”

A month after Mr. Cooney’s email, subpoenas covering hundreds of Republican-related entities began flowing.

Mr. Smith sought records from Apple Inc. for one unidentified person seeking communications with “any member, employee or agent of the legislative branch of government.” Another subpoena to an unidentified individual sought records relating to communications with several national media companies. Subpoenas issued to banks, individuals and businesses sought the records of many of Mr. Trump’s allies and White House aides.

One subpoena was denied. It was issued to Texas-based AT&T, seeking the records of the cellphone owned by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican. The company refused to comply, citing the speech and debate clause in the U.S. Constitution.

The law required the telecom giant to notify Mr. Cruz of the subpoena, but the company was silenced by a secret court order handed down by Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg. Mr. Cruz, appearing at the press conference Wednesday, waived Judge Boasberg’s order in front of reporters and read it aloud: “The court finds reasonable grounds to believe such a disclosure will result in destruction of, or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses and serious jeopardy to the investigation.”

Mr. Cruz, a former solicitor general of Texas who argued nine cases before the Supreme Court, called on the House to impeach Judge Boasberg. He said he believes the judge printed the Arctic Frost subpoenas “like the placemats at Denny’s — one after the other.”

He called Judge Boasberg’s actions a weaponization of the legal system.

“We are going to get answers from every person who signed off on this abuse of power, and mark my words: There will be accountability for these zealots who wanted to corrupt the Department of Justice and corrupt the judiciary in order to try to attack their enemies list.”

Mr. Smith has offered to testify publicly before the U.S. Senate about his oversight of Arctic Frost.

His investigation led to Mr. Trump’s criminal indictment on Aug. 1, 2023, for his actions after the 2020 election.

A judge dismissed the charges after Mr. Trump won a second term in November.

In January, Mr. Smith said he stood by his decision to indict Mr. Trump and believes Mr. Trump would have been convicted of election interference if he had not been elected president a second time. Mr. Smith said Mr. Trump made “knowingly false claims of election fraud” to try to overturn the election results in 2020.

Mr. Trump said he did nothing wrong and was contesting evidence of fraud and mishandling of election results.

Senators said they won’t interview Mr. Smith until they have all the documents related to the Arctic Frost investigation. The FBI is digging for more. In the meantime, Republicans called on whistleblowers to come forward with information.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, whose phone records were surveilled by Mr. Smith while he was chair of the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Smith was spying on Republicans and churning out subpoenas only because Mr. Trump launched another presidential bid.

“Here’s what I think. That when he said he wanted to have a political comeback, it triggered the Democratic machine to destroy him before he could ever get started,” Mr. Graham said. “And in their effort to destroy him, there were no boundaries. The goal was to stop Trump and to look at anything and everything that could stop Trump, and ignore the Constitution and a lot of other things.”