OPINION:
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department exploited an election challenge to target more than 400 Republican individuals and entities, including their phone metadata and bank records, under the guise of law enforcement. It was arguably the largest and most corrosive fishing expedition in American history.
On Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley made public 197 subpoenas issued by special counsel Jack Smith and his team as part of his election case against President Trump. The investigation, code-named Arctic Frost, began at the FBI’s Washington field office and expanded to include agents in several field offices from Seattle to New York. Investigators requested almost $17,000 to travel and conduct more than 40 interviews in June 2022 alone, according to the documents released by Mr. Grassley.
Arctic Frost’s dragnet was vast. Those targeted had their communications with media companies, including conservative outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, monitored. If they reached out to “any member, employee or agent of the Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government,” those communications were tracked. Their fundraising efforts and donor lists were surveilled. Their bank records and financial information were subpoenaed.
“Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus,” Mr. Grassley said at a press conference Wednesday. “Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition.”
What was the underlying crime justifying this massive probe?
In a memorandum drafted for Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray argued that “fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes were submitted to the Archivist of the United States” for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential contest.
That election was undeniably messy. As the COVID-19 pandemic emergency reached its height, many battleground states modified their election procedures, allowing for ballot drop boxes and extended mail-in ballots with varying rules for signature matching and deadlines. As a result, the election results in several states were delayed by weeks beyond Election Day.
When the results came in, Mr. Trump contested many of them where he had lost by a narrow margin. Republicans in these states, in an effort to preserve Mr. Trump’s legal challenges for a recount or audit before the outcome was certified by Congress, nominated alternative slates of electors whose votes could be counted by Congress if the state’s election results were overturned. Some Republican state electors cast their ballots in favor of Mr. Trump, even after their state was called for Mr. Biden, in case a recount or audit flipped the state to Mr. Trump so Congress could count them in the final electoral vote.
This process is not without precedent and therefore never should have been greenlit by Mr. Garland for a broader probe into the entire Republican establishment.
In 1960, Hawaii declared Richard Nixon the victor over John F. Kennedy, and its election results were certified. Kennedy disputed the outcome and won in court. It was because Kennedy’s electors voted for him, not Nixon, in the certification results that allowed the state’s governor to declare Kennedy the true winner of Hawaii and for Congress to count Kennedy as the winner of Hawaii’s three electoral votes.
Moreover, Democrats in Congress have repeatedly refused to certify state electoral votes because of suspicions of voting irregularities or ongoing recounts. In 2000, 15 House Democrats objected to counting Florida’s electoral votes. After they lost the 2004 election, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs filed an objection to the certification of Ohio’s electoral college votes.
Bottom line: It’s not uncommon for state representatives to use all the levers of the law on behalf of their preferred candidate to ensure a free and fair election. It is not unusual for members of Congress, whose job it is to certify the election, to investigate and speak with state lawmakers to ensure that no irregularities occurred.
That is why it’s so egregious that Mr. Biden’s Justice Department felt it necessary to spy on at least eight Republican senators as part of its Arctic Frost investigation. These senators were merely doing their jobs.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, who was among the senators whose phone records were subpoenaed without his knowledge, said a federal judge ordered his phone company, AT&T, not to inform him about the request for a year. Mr. Grassley noted that Verizon told him the Verizon landline at Mr. Cruz’s office was also “affected.” The Arctic Frost subpoenas didn’t include phone call details, but they did request information on which calls were placed by the phone and to whom.
The newly released documents on Arctic Frost show Mr. Smith’s investigation spanned much further than investigating what they deemed fraudulent electors.
They allege Ed Corrigan, the president of the Conservative Partnership Institute and a longtime Republican Senate aide, is “pro-Putin” and “wants to build infrastructure to train people for civil war.”
“Corrigan secretly controls the freedom caucus and has plans that are not good for the FBI,” a Seattle-based FBI agent wrote, attributing the information to a redacted source. “Corrigan hates the FBI, who he refers to as spooks.”
Previously released Arctic Frost documents detailed more than 90 conservative groups, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA nonprofit, that were targeted in the probe.
All individuals wrapped up in Arctic Frost had to hire attorneys and devote hours, days and presumably years of their time, attention and money to defending themselves against the Biden administration. All were Republicans.
Arctic Frost was aptly named; it intended to chill the voices of half the country who had the gall to support Mr. Trump.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.