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Which GOP senators had their calls tapped in Jack Smith's 'Arctic Frost’ probe? See full list
Jack Smith secretly accessed the private phone records of nearly a dozen GOP senators, including Lindsey Graham, Marsha Blackburn, and Ron Johnson.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith oversaw an FBI investigation codenamed "Arctic Frost" that allegedly involved tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican senators and one House member during the probe into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot and related election challenges, according to Fox News Digital.
The operation, launched inside the FBI on April 13, 2022, focused on “election law matters." It was later incorporated into Jack Smith's broader inquiry into Trump's post-2020 election conduct after his appointment as special counsel in November 2022.
A newly surfaced document, dated September 27, 2023, and recently discovered by FBI Director Kash Patel, details the use of the FBI's Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST) to monitor call metadata of the following individuals -
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
Josh Hawley of Missouri
Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming
Bill Hagerty of Tennessee
Dan Sullivan of Alaska
Tommy Tuberville of Alabama
GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania
On Monday, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino briefed the lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the findings.
Republicans reaction
In a video statement on X, Senator Bill Hagerty said, "Jack Smith tracked my private communications and those of my colleagues during his witch hunt to investigate POTUS. This is exactly the type of political weaponization of the federal government under Presidents Obama and Biden that Republicans and President Trump have been calling out for years. We will get to the bottom of this, but every American should be shocked to see what happened here."
Posting the surveillance document on X, Senator Chuck Grassley wrote, "This document shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues during its Arctic Frost investigation into "election conspiracy" Arctic Frost later became Jack Smith's elector case against Trump."
Sen. Marsha Blackburn condemned the briefing as "an abomination."
“I was just briefed by @FBIDDBongino about this appalling weaponization of the FBI under Jack Smith. I will not let it stand,” she wrote.
