Former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former FBI Director Christopher Wray were behind the approval of the Arctic Frost probe, which targeted conservatives through a weaponized Justice Department.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency “handed over important documentation showing weaponization and politicization at the highest levels of government.”
“We’re proud to work with Chairman Grassley and Senator Johnson on this critical oversight to restore one tier of justice and the transparency the American people deserve,” he wrote, noting that Arctic Frost was a “stain on this country. That weaponization ends under this FBI.”
The document, dated to April 2022, is listed as a “sensitive investigation matter,” meaning that Garland’s signature was necessary for the Washington Field Office to open the probe. The document sought to investigate individuals engaged in a “conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s certification of the Electoral College on January 6, 2020, including through the submission of fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes to the United States Government.”
An executive summary of the “Following the 2020 Presidential and Vice Presidential election, in an apparent effort to obstruct Congress’s certification of Electoral College, fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes were submitted to the Archivist of the United States, purporting to represent the actual elector votes from the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.”
“Open source reporting and public statements made by individuals closely associated with Donald J. Trump, Inc. (Trump Campaign) present an articulable factual basis indicating the existence of a federal crime, and thus the FBI seeks to open a full investigation,” it says.”
Sharing the documents on social media, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote that the investigation “unleashed unchecked government power at the highest levels,” criticizing that former DOJ officials “personally approved” the opening of Arctic Frost.
As part of the Arctic Frost probe, the FBI investigated a number of conservative groups, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
Grassley told Patel during a September Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the investigation “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,” he said. “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.”
