Senator Grassley: FBI Used Arctic Frost Investigation To Target GOP Groups, Trump Allies

‘It was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends,’ he claims.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Senator Chuck Grassley. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa turned the Judiciary Committee’s annual FBI oversight hearing into a political battleground, unleashing explosive new allegations against a former director, Christopher Wray, by releasing new files from the controversial 2022 Arctic Frost case.

The new findings were announced during the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman’s opening salvo, before the current FBI director, Kash Patel, testified on Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The senior senator says that numerous Republican organizations, including Turning Point USA, were targeted “under the investigative scope” of Arctic Frost, which formed the basis of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against President Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“In total, 92 Republican targets, including Republican groups and Republican-linked individuals, were placed under the investigative scope of Arctic Frost. On that political list was one of Charlie Kirk’s groups, Turning Point USA,” Mr. Grassley said in prepared remarks.   

“In other words, Arctic Frost wasn’t just a case to politically investigate Trump. It was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus.”

The publicly released documents show a summary of the investigation of a “multifaceted conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election” and contain a spreadsheet that lays out a list of subpoenas issued, including to numerous financial institutions along with political action committees such as Turning Point USA. Among the other GOP organizations listed in the file are the Republican National Committee, Save America, and the Tea Party Express.

The disclosure was made while Mr. Grassley was heaping praise on Mr. Patel for shifting the FBI’s focus back to law enforcement, calling his efforts an “overwhelmingly better record” than those of previous directors.

“Today, you’ll get a lot of grief from some members of this committee,” the senator said in his remarks. “But, in the short amount of time you’ve been director, you’ve corrected whistleblower retaliation and increased transparency more than any other FBI director I’ve seen.”

Since January, Mr. Grassley has released files from the Arctic Frost investigation in dribs and drabs, including records that showed that the FBI had obtained the cellphones of both Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and conducted sweeping interviews.

“Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” the Judiciary Committee chairman wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Mr. Patel in March. 

“The American people deserve to know the complete extent of the corruption within the DOJ and FBI that led to the investigation into President Trump.”


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