Sen. Grassley releases new Arctic Frost records

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) this week delivered remarks at a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Arctic Frost, Jack Smith’s failed election case against President Trump that began at the Biden Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Grassley additionally made public new Arctic Frost records provided by the Department of Justice and Verizon, including two of Smith’s subpoenas for now-FBI Director Kash Patel’s phone records. Grassley released the documents alongside Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights.

A transcript of his remarks follow.

Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee

“Arctic Frost: A Modern Watergate”
Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights
March 24, 2026

Thank you, Chairman Cruz, for your leadership on this matter. (NOTE: See Sen. Cruz's remarks below.)

Today is the second in a series of Arctic Frost hearings that I’ve authorized as Chairman.
I started my investigation into Arctic Frost in July 2022 based on credible whistleblower disclosures.
Senator Ron Johnson has since joined the investigation, and I appreciate our joint work.
Our goal is to publicly release as many records as possible.

The public has a right to know how their taxpayer dollars have been used and who was involved up and down the decision-making chain.

Today, we’re making new records public.

Some records are dated January 2023, before Jack Smith’s team secretly sought most member tolling data.
The records include a wish list created by Smith’s team naming 14 members of Congress for whom they wanted to seek tolling data. Some of those members are senators on this very Committee.

But, the list notes that Smith’s team already knew these members had communications, to include text messages for some members, with individuals associated with President Trump.

And Jack Smith was certainly aware of this effort. To quote from the emails we’re making public today, “before we tell Main (as in main Justice), we’re going to fire off subpoenas for so many members tolls I should make sure Jack’s aware.”

Another record states that it’s “unlikely that many of those members will cooperate with our investigation.”
The same record also says the members “likely have a valid Speech or Debate privilege immunizing them from compelled testimony.”

I’ve already publicly released other records showing Smith’s team was warned that subpoenaing congressional information could violate the Speech or Debate clause.

I’ve also publicly released 197 subpoenas seeking sensitive financial information from over 400 Republican groups and individuals. Some of the information sought included legislative branch communications.

Even with these constitutional concerns, Smith’s team secretly sought and obtained member of Congress tolling data. And when one phone company pushed back, Smith backed down. That calls into question the necessity of obtaining member data.

Another record calls into question Jack Smith’s assertion that the House January 6th Committee materials “comprised a small part of the Office’s investigative record.”

This new record says of the January 6 report, “Leadership team fully read and reviewed. Last weekend, we went over it page by page and incorporated into our investigative plan.”

Indeed, this same record that we’re making public today says that Smith’s team will be “logging all information contained in the report.”

The record also states Smith’s team will “leverage” the report to “avoid needless interviews and focus the interviews we perform on underdeveloped topics.”

Overall, the records create additional questions about Smith’s conduct, need for member data and candor to the court and the public.

The Democrats have criticized us for not bringing Jack Smith before us at the beginning.

If we’d followed the Democrats’ premature and ill-advised strategy, we wouldn’t have had a great deal of information we now have that shows Jack Smith misled Congress and the public, if not outright lied.

And lastly, we’re also making public two subpoenas for the toll records of FBI Director Patel, along with the non-disclosure orders that kept them secret.

This Committee’s work will continue.

* * *

Sen. Cruz’s opening statement as prepared below:

By U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz
R-Texas

Fifty years ago, Watergate exposed a simple but profound abuse of power: operatives tied to a sitting President broke into a building to secretly gather information from their political opponents by bugging offices and seizing documents.

And what followed was just as troubling: efforts to use the powers of government to conceal it—to pressure investigators, to shut down inquiries, to avoid accountability. Even though that operation failed in its ultimate objective, the American people did not treat it lightly. The consequences were swift and severe.

The President of the United States resigned in disgrace, facing near-certain impeachment. And dozens of officials—more than forty individuals connected to the scheme—were indicted or jailed.

Because the attempt itself was the offense. In our law, we recognize a simple truth: a failed crime is not an insignificant one. A man who pulls the trigger and misses is no less guilty than the one who hits his mark. The intent is the same. The danger is the same. The crime is the same.

And if Watergate taught us anything, it is that even a single abuse of power—carried out by a handful of individuals—can shake the foundations of our Republic.

But what we confront today—the Biden Administration’s Arctic Frost scheme—is not a single act. It is a modern Watergate—trading a break-in at one office for a digital sweep into approximately 100,000 private communications, more than a dozen Senators, and thousands of individuals’ lives. But even that comparison falls short. It is something far broader: an operation that aligned Democrats across all three branches of government.

The Biden Executive Branch—through the DOJ and FBI—wielded investigative power against political opponents. Democrat-appointed judges in the Judiciary—through warrants, secrecy orders, and deference—failed to serve as a meaningful check.

And members of the Legislative Branch—who should be the first line of oversight—chose instead to look the other way. And just like Watergate, these officials deserve to be investigated, tried, impeached, and brought to justice.

So, let’s examine how this operation was carried out—step by step.

In early 2022, senior leadership within the Biden Department of Justice made the decision to open an investigation targeting President Trump and his campaign apparatus. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Chris Wray all personally approved the opening of the investigation.

On April 4, 2022, they signed a confidential memo bearing each of their signatures. That fact matters. Because Watergate was carried out in secret—by operatives who were not brazen enough to act with formal, written authorization from the highest levels of the Department of Justice.

Arctic Frost was fully authorized, formalized, and executed—through the official powers of the United States government—by partisan Democrats.

Then, in the fall, came nearly 200 subpoenas. We’re talking about information pertaining to hundreds of entities and individuals. Over 400 Republican-aligned groups and individuals, including the most sensitive categories of personal data, had information gathered, retained, and, in some accounts, shared across offices.

Watergate was about a handful of files in a single office. This reached into tens of thousands of private communications—emails, records, and personal data. Toll records, bank records, donor lists, law firm records, and other personal files relating to every major conservative organization were subpoenaed:

Donald Trump’s campaign, the RNC, the Conservative Partnership Institute, Save America PAC, America First Policy Institute, and even MyPillow. Watergate broke into an office. Arctic Frost reached into the private lives of thousands of Americans.

Meanwhile, conservative leaders found themselves equally violated. The Biden Administration sought the phone records of nearly 20% of Republicans in the Senate, including myself.

Without our knowledge, the FBI took our cellphone data, including information about with whom we were talking, how long we were talking, and from where we were calling. Toll records are not trivial—they are a map of your life, giving insight into your relationships, your movements, and your patterns.

Such invasive subpoenas were granted by Judge Boasberg, a Democrat-appointed judge, on the premise that any one of us—as duly elected United States Senators—might destroy evidence, tamper with witnesses, or obstruct justice.

Recently, even more troubling facts have continued to emerge. Biden’s DOJ subpoenaed the toll records of now-FBI Director Kash Patel and now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Both were, at the time, private citizens and key members of President Trump’s 2024 election campaign. Now imagine the reverse.

Imagine, for one moment, that President Trump’s Department of Justice had secretly obtained the phone records of Senator Schumer—and of nearly 20 percent of Senate Democrats—without their knowledge.

Imagine if a Republican Attorney General, a Republican FBI Director, and a Republican-appointed judge had all signed off on a covert effort to sweep up the communications, location data, and call histories of every Democrat-affiliated organization and individual in the U.S.

Would anyone in this room call that routine? Would Democrats call that normal law enforcement activity? Would the press shrug its shoulders? Of course not. There would be wall-to-wall outrage. There would be cries of authoritarianism. There would be emergency hearings, demands for resignations, and talk of impeachment before the sun went down.

Arctic Frost is the culmination of a gross pattern of abuse of power by Democrats. In 2016, Obama’s FBI began spying on the Trump campaign just a month before Election Day.

In 2020, Biden’s FBI met with Senators Johnson and Grassley in an effort to throw off their investigation into the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, calling the laptop “disinformation”—a claim we now know is false.

For years, Democrats have exhibited a pattern of abusing public law enforcement powers for the sake of politics—a pattern this Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Grassley, is now working to uncover and expose.

Because no administration—Republican or Democrat—has any business turning the surveillance powers of the federal government against its political opposition.

Fifty years ago, this nation was confronted with an abuse of power—and it responded not with indifference, but with accountability. We were tested then. We are being tested again now. The question before us is simple: Will we uphold the same standard—or abandon it?

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