The Biden administration’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated a number of conservative groups, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, as part of its probe called “Arctic Frost.”
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed the information during a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee.
“it’s well-understood that your predecessor left you an FBI infected with politics,” Grassley told Patel. “I’m going to provide examples of that today, including making public new whistleblower records.”
Grassley described that Arctic Frost was the “FBI case opened and approved by anti-Trump FBI agent Thibault” and became “Jack Smith’s elector case.”
The senator said:
“These new records show that Arctic Frost was much broader than just an electoral matter. The case was expanded to Republican organizations. Some examples of the groups the Wray FBI sought to place under political investigation included the Republican National Committee, Republican Attorneys General Association and Trump political groups. 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.”
The Arctic Frost probe “wasn’t just a case to politically investigate Trump,” Grassley explained, but a “vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus.”
“So, today Senator Johnson and I are making these records public for the entire country to see,” he said. “I hope a lot of people are interested in seeing what government can do when various agencies have a political agenda.”
