Republicans see FBI's Arctic Frost investigation as plot to chill Trump's political comeback

Newly-declassified revelations related to the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation chronicle the 2022 lawfare assault against then-former President Donald Trump and MAGA world, as criminal inquiries — which would lead to criminal charges — spun into high gear as Trump leaned toward running for president again.

The new revelation that the FBI snooped on the phone records of Republican members of Congress during its January 6 investigation is bringing greater scrutiny to then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, during whose tenure the bureau effort occurred, and to then-Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was leading the Biden Justice Department’s investigation into Donald Trump.

Deep State resistance to Trump

These revelations are also putting the spotlight on former key FBI official Timothy Thibault, whom Republicans argue showed extreme anti-Trump bias, demonstrated a willingness to target Trump early in his first term, attempted to slow walk or block the FBI’s investigation into Hunter Biden, and in April 2022 helped spark the investigation dubbed "Arctic Frost" — later carried on by Smith — which led to criminal charges against Trump related to the Capitol riot.

Trump and other Republicans repeatedly alleged that Smith and the FBI were themselves engaging in election influence by trying to bring charges, hold trials, and obtain convictions against Trump ahead of the 2024 election.

Thibault, a former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge at the FBI’s Washington Field Office, retired from the bureau in 2022 amidst whistleblower allegations and after his anti-Trump social media postings were revealed. The former FBI official did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him by Just the News through the law firm which represents him. There are no credible reports of Thibault being pardoned, especially since he has not been convicted of a crime requiring one. 

The FBI raided Trump’s Florida resort home of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 with the authorization of then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Biden attorney general picked Smith in November 2022 to lead the twin criminal investigations into Trump related to classified documents and the Capitol riot.

Thibault helps spark the Arctic Frost investigation targeting Trump

Thibault indicated that he was willing to consider investigating Trump as early as March 2017, according to a document released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday.

The FBI agent said in a March 2, 2017, email that he was “not sure where the rumor started” that his office “was leaning toward open [sic] a case on the Trump campaign” as he admitted that “we weren't close to opening a PI/FI [preliminary investigation / full investigation] on the Trump Campaign.”

But Thibault added: “What we are doing: Aggressively seeking out open-source information, HUMINT [human intelligence] info that could predicate a case.” He said that “we have, over the past month, been actively collaborating” with the FBI’s Washington Field Office in the effort and said that he would “continue open conversations with” FBI headquarters “on what, if anything we find.” Thibault said that “if nothing else, we want to be a resource for them if they have questions about the inner working of federal political campaigns (in-kind contributions, law prohibiting foreign contributions, straw donor campaigns, and Super PACs/dark money).”

Grassley said Tuesday that the email “appears to relate to matters different than Crossfire Hurricane” and that it showed that “less than two months into Trump’s first presidency, the partisan Comey FBI was hard at work trying to manufacture another case against Trump.”

“Thibault and the FBI eventually got their wish in April 2022 with the opening of Arctic Frost,” Grassley said. “This was a political fishing expedition to get Trump at all costs – just like Crossfire Hurricane – and it’s a disgrace to the taxpayers.”

Thibault eventually “authored the initial language for what ultimately became Jack Smith’s federal case against Trump regarding the 2020 presidential election,” according to Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., in January. The senators said that "records show Thibault essentially opened and approved his own investigation” — which was dubbed “Arctic Frost.”

The senators released a February 2022 email where Thibault said that “here is draft opening language we discussed.” They also released an email from that month when the FBI agent said that “I had a discussion with the case team, and we believe there to be predication to include former President of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject.”

Thibault's eagerness to attack Trump

An unearthed email from April 2022 showed Thibault approving the opening of Arctic Frost.

Even as Thibault displayed a willingness early on to target Trump, Grassley revealed in July 2022 that whistleblowers had told him that Thibault had “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory” information on Hunter Biden reporting in October 2020, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.” The senator wrote that Thibault “allegedly ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines” and that he “subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.”

Thibault’s attorneys from the Morrison & Foerster law firm pushed back on these claims in 2022. "There have been allegations that Mr. Thibault took certain actions in investigations for partisan political reasons," the then-retired FBI agent’s lawyers said. “Mr. Thibault welcomes any investigation of these false allegations, regardless of his retirement."

"Mr. Thibault did not supervise the investigation of Hunter Biden … In particular, Mr. Thibault was not involved in any decisions related to any laptop that may be at issue in that investigation, and he did not seek to close the investigation,” Thibault’s attorneys said.

Thibault’s purported Twitter account at the time retweeted an anti-Trump Lincoln Project tweet that said, “Donald Trump is a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man.” The Lincoln Project was sharing an article by The Atlantic which was titled “Donald Trump is a Broken Man.” Thibault’s social media postings also included criticisms of the first Trump Justice Department under then-Attorney General William Barr and of other Republicans.

Garland picks Jack Smith to pursue J6 and classified docs cases

Garland’s appointment order for Smith in November 2022 said the special counsel was “authorized to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.” Smith was “further authorized to conduct the ongoing investigation” related to the FBI raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

“The Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters,” the Biden DOJ appointment memo said. “The Special Counsel is also authorized to refer to the appropriate United States Attorney discrete prosecutions that may arise from the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

Smith had previously served under Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, leading the DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit from 2010 to 2015. Smith led a team of 30 prosecutors in conducting public corruption cases throughout the United States, including a mixed track record of going after high-profile politicians.

Smith also inserted the DOJ into what would become the Lois Lerner IRS scandal targeting conservative nonprofit groups during the Obama years.

Trump declared that Smith was “nothing less than a hit man for Obama” shortly after he was picked by Garland. Trump also criticized Smith in June 2023, calling the special counsel “a Trump Hater — a deranged ‘psycho’ that shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice,’ other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!”

Jack Smith and the FBI carry on Arctic Frost investigation

Smith and the FBI reportedly collected the private phone records of eight Republican senators and one GOP House member as part of his investigation into the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.

“Deranged Jack Smith got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. A real sleazebag!!!” Trump said on Truth Social on Monday in response to the news.

Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him by Just the News through his lawyers.

An unearthed FBI record from 2023 indicated that investigators at the bureau had “conducted preliminary toll analysis on limited toll records” tied to phone calls related to GOP Sens. Johnson, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; and GOP Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

“This document shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues during its Arctic Frost investigation into ‘election conspiracy’ Arctic Frost later became Jack Smith's elector case against Trump,” Grassley said in a Monday afternoon tweet as he shared the FBI record that had been provided to him by current FBI Director Kash Patel. “BIDEN FBI WEAPONIZATION = WORSE THAN WATERGATE.”

The once-secret FBI record, dated late September 2023, has the title of "CAST Assistance" — a likely reference to the bureau’s cellular analysis survey team. The case ID for the record is "ARCTIC FROST — Election Law Matters — SENSITIVE INVESTIGATIVE MATTER — CAST."

“As a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we have already taken the following actions: We terminated employees, we abolished the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead,” Patel tweeted on Tuesday.

Grassley's office said Monday that "the FBI in 2023 sought and obtained data about the senators’ phone use" from January 4, 2021 through January 7, 2021 (the day after the Capitol riot). The senator's office said that "that data shows when and to whom a call is made, as well as the duration and general location data of the call" although not the contents of the calls themselves.

The Senate chairman's office revealed that the FBI document "was found in a Prohibited Access file in response to Grassley’s oversight requests."

“Based on the evidence to-date, Arctic Frost and related weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate,” Grassley said in a Monday evening statement. “What I’ve uncovered today is disturbing and outrageous political conduct by the Biden FBI. The FBI’s actions were an unconstitutional breach, and Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel need to hold accountable those involved in this serious wrongdoing.”

The FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation also targeted dozens of GOP officials and organizations, according to documents released by Grassley in September.

“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,” Grassley said last month. “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.”

Conservatives selectedly targeted

An FBI document from the Arctic Frost inquiry dated January 2023 showed that the investigation’s “targets” included Donald J. Trump for President Inc., Turning Point USA, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the America First Policy Institute, the Save America PAC, the Conservative Partnership Institute, and more.

The senators further revealed in March that the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation had also “acquired the government cell phones of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, among other government officials.”

Biden DOJ and Jack Smith go after Trump over January 6

Garland as attorney general in January 2022 declared “there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice” than going after those involved with January 6, calling the DOJ’s inquiry “one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history.”

Garland announced in early January of this year, before being replaced by Pam Bondi, that “we have now charged more than 1,500 individuals for crimes that occurred on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to" the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.

Wray claimed in a February 2022 speech that the FBI was working just as hard to punish those involved in the 2020 George Floyd riots as it was to prosecute those tied to the Capitol riot.

The Biden attorney general appointed Smith to be special counsel in November 2022.

Smith indicted Trump in August 2023 related to the then-former president’s alleged actions surrounding the 2020 election, with superseding charges in August 2024. Smith contended that Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”

Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the January 6-related case against Trump in November 2024 after Trump’s win, pointing to the Office of Legal Counsel’s position that a sitting president could not be prosecuted by his own DOJ.

Smith released his report on his January 6-related effort against Trump in January of this year, a couple weeks before Trump’s second inauguration. The special counsel report concluded that “substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”

Trump issued pardons and commutations in January of this year to the hundreds of defendants who had been charged by the DOJ for their involvement in the Capitol riot.

Patel said during his late January confirmation hearing before the Senate that "I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement."

The current FBI chief also said that “I also believe America is not safer because President Biden's commutation of a man” — convicted murderer Leonard Peltier — “who murdered two FBI agents… So it goes both ways."

The National Archives and the raid of Mar-a-Lago

Trump returned an initial batch of fifteen boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives in January 2022. However, the National Archives said it had found some records with classified markings and believed Trump continued to possess other records, and in February 2022, it referred the issue to the Justice Department.

Debra Wall, then the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, sent a May 2022 letter to Trump’s lawyers informing them that an initial review “identified items marked as classified national security information.”

The archivist said this resulted in Biden and the White House being made aware of the situation as the FBI sought access to the records.

The National Archives told Trump’s lawyers in early May 2022 that it “will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President [Biden].”

“NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them,” Wall wrote in the letter. “On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days.”

The National Archives letter in May 2022 was shortly followed by a grand jury subpoena, then by a June 2022 visit to Mar-a-Lago by federal investigators, and finally by the August 2022 raid.

Garland quickly said he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for the FBI’s unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022.

Smith and the Biden DOJ charged Trump in June 2023 over allegations related to the improper retention of classified documents, followed by a superseding indictment the next month. The charging documents alleged that “the unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States.”

Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith’s classified documents case against Trump in July 2024, ruling that Smith had been unlawfully appointed as special counsel. Smith attempted to appeal the ruling but soon dropped it after Trump won the 2024 election against then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

The targeting of Peter Navarro

The Biden DOJ declined to charge former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump social media director Dan Scavino, who were cited by Congress for contempt, but it did indict Trump ally Steve Bannon and Trump official Peter Navarro for refusing to comply with subpoenas.

Navarro — a top adviser to Donald Trump during his first administration as well as in his second — was charged by Biden's Justice Department in 2022 for refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the Democrat-led House select committee investigating January 6, 2021. 

Navarro repeatedly asserted claims of executive privilege, but Biden and his DOJ rejected this assertion, and Navarro was convicted in 2023 and sentenced in 2024, when he spent four months behind bars. The trial judge was Judge Amit P. Mehta, who was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2014 by then-President Barack Obama.

Grassley on Tuesday released a June 2022 request by the FBI to surveil Navarro along with an October 2022 timeline of the FBI’s surveillance of Navarro.

Navarro, who is currently an Assistant to President Trump and the Director of the White House’s Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, appealed his conviction in 2024.

The Biden DOJ filed a lengthy brief defending its prosecution of Navarro last year. The Trump DOJ has now told the appeals court that it wants to abandon the arguments put forward by the Biden DOJ, but that it also wants an outside lawyer to argue to sustain Navarro’s conviction during the ongoing appeals process at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Navarro has objected to the appointment of an outside attorney. The case is scheduled for oral argument in front of appeals court judges in December.

Navarro doesn't want to let the DOJ walk away without explaining its own position on the controversy. 

Just the News confirmed in August that the Hatch Act Unit of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), led by Trump-appointed Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer, had opened an investigation into Smith related to the cases he had pursued against Trump.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged the OSC to investigate Smith in a letter sent back in July, arguing Smith had improperly attempted to influence the 2024 election.

Smith’s lawyers from the Covington & Burling law firm sent their own letter to Greer in August defending their client, arguing that the basis for an OSC inquiry into their client was “imaginary and unfounded.”