Republican senators keep telling Pam Bondi that Biden ‘tapped’ their phones.Here’s what really happened

[Thiệu Ngô]

‘Arctic Frost’ investigation sought call logs from senators immediately before and after January 6

By Alex Woodward

Senate Republicans are falsely claiming that newly disclosed records show that the FBI “tapped” their phones during former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

A single-page document, which was publicly released by Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley one day before Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the committee, only shows that an FBI agent performed “preliminary toll analysis” of nine senators’ phone records. However, Republicans keep claiming more was going on and that it was a politically motivated task.

Pulling phone records is a common investigative tactic, and those “toll” records include what numbers were called and when and for how long. They do not include the contents of messages or conversations, which would require a court-approved wiretap.

It’s unclear why the FBI sought those records, but agents were pulling data from the days immediately before and after January 6, 2021, when Trump and his allies were scrambling to derail a joint session of Congress to formally certify Biden’s election.

Senator Josh Hawley — who was close to Trump’s efforts in Congress to overturn his election loss — repeatedly falsely stated Tuesday that the FBI during Joe Biden’s administration had “tapped” his phone.

As Bondi appeared before the Senate committee Tuesday, Grassley claimed the document is evidence of politically motivated “spying,” while an incensed Lindsey Graham — whose name also appears on the document — demanded answers from the attorney general.

None of the senators acknowledged that the call data was tied to an investigation into Trump’s attempt to overturn election results.

“Why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from January 4th to the 7th? Can you tell me that?” he asked Bondi, who is the top legal enforcement officer in America. “Do you think that was an abuse of power?”

The document is dated September 27, 2023, nearly two months after Trump was indicted for conspiracy and obstruction in his efforts to overturn his election loss, among other crimes tied to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The document lists senators Bill Hagerty, Dan Sullivan, Tommy Tuberville, Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn in addition to Graham and Hawley.

Most of the senators on the document were part of a group of congressional Republicans who planned to challenge Trump’s loss on January 6. Even after a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and delayed a vote, a handful of Republican senators stood by their decisions to vote against certifying the results — including Hawley and Tuberville.

The call analysis appears to be part of the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation, which was opened one year earlier by Timothy Thibault, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office. That investigation was then assigned to Smith.

The “Arctic Frost” probe examined a “multifaceted conspiracy” to overturn election results in states that Trump lost, according to an unclassified memo outlining the investigation.

Johnson, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has also clarified that “no content” was retrieved but rather who was called and when.

Yet while Democratic members of Congress accuse the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies, just as the president accused Biden and his administration of doing against him and his allies, Republicans are pointing to the call data as evidence of a conspiracy against them, though little else is known about the records’ role in the investigation.

“Deranged Jack Smith got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social Monday. “A real sleazebag!!!”

“I’ve heard them say that Joe Biden never targeted his political enemies. Joe Biden never directed his attorney general to target his political opponents. Huh, that’s interesting, because I could’ve sworn that yesterday we learned that the FBI tapped my phone,” Hawley said Tuesday.

“We got a list — tap my phone, tap Lindsey Graham’s phone, tap Marsha Blackburn’s phone … Gee, it sure looks like targeting political opponents to me,” he said.

“To tap our phones, to pull that data… For them to use it in their investigations, how disgusting is that?” Blackburn said Tuesday.

The attorney general did not correct Hawley’s characterization of the records during her testimony Tuesday.

Bondi, who spent the hearing largely avoiding answering questions about political motivations into Trump-directed Department of Justice prosecutions, said she could not speak about “details” of the call data for “very good reasons.” She said she spoke with FBI Director Kash Patel “at length” about the records.

The attorney general said Smith “wasted $50 million” in an effort to “put President Trump in jail.”