Senate Democrats want to see more evidence that the FBI illegally spied on GOP lawmakers

Senate Democrats on Tuesday said they wanted to see more evidence that President Biden’s FBI spied on Republican lawmakers before they would believe there was wrongdoing.

An FBI document released Monday by Senate Republicans revealed the FBI spied on phone calls by eight Republican senators and one GOP House member as part of operation “Arctic Frost,” which led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of President Trump for 2020 election interference.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, revealed more documents Tuesday that he said show more “weaponization” by the FBI against Mr. Trump and his allies, including one that details an effort soon after the 2017 inauguration to find information that “could predicate a case.”

Mr. Grassley said the spying on members of Congress was “worse than Watergate.”

Sen. Chris Coons, Connecticut Democrat, said he hasn’t seen Mr. Grassley’s report and wants to see more information.

“I want details on this. I want to understand. We need to get confirmation that this was done appropriately and legally, that they went through the legal process,” Mr. Coons said. “Look, we have to recognize that Jan. 6 was an exceptional event, but surveilling senators’ phones is something that really has to be carefully examined.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, said more needs to be investigated about the incident.

“I think we need more than their sort of fair allegation about what has occurred, and I think any kind of spying or illegal surveillance is condemnable,” he said. “But I’m not sure what the full evidence is at this point.”

Sen. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrat, said he’d be “very concerned about that,” and said he looks forward to seeing the report.

Arctic Frost was launched in 2022 to probe the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riot. The FBI secretly obtained call records for nine GOP lawmakers — eight senators and one congressman — from Jan. 4, 2021, and through Jan. 7, 2021.

The Republican lawmakers who were targeted were Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.

The documents released Tuesday, Mr. Grassley said, included an email from now-ousted Supervisory Special Agent Timothy Thibault who said the FBI wasn’t “close” to opening a case but was “aggressively seeking out” open-source information and human sources that would lead to a case on the Trump 2016 campaign.

Other documents detailed the FBI’s surveillance of Peter Navarro, a Trump aide who was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about events involving the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Mr. Grassley said the documents show the FBI could have arrested Mr. Navarro at his home, but instead waited to arrest him in public at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

“The way Navarro was treated was unnecessary,” Mr. Grassley said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, testifying Tuesday to the Judiciary Committee, called the spying on Congress members a “historic betrayal of public trust.”

Ms. Bondi said in total, they have identified 92 Republican individuals and GOP-friendly groups that were targeted for intrusive scrutiny by the Biden-era FBI.

“Arctic Frost was an unconstitutional, undemocratic abuse of power,” the attorney general said. “This is the kind of conduct that shattered the American people’s faith in our government.”

“We are ending this weaponization,” she said.

Mr. Grassley also revealed another document he said showed the FBI in 2017 was pursuing a “McAuliffe case” where it obtained information about a “pass through … to pay former POTUS” — apparently former President Bill Clinton.

The senator asked Ms. Bondi to figure out if the FBI pursued that case as relentlessly as it pursued Mr. Trump.