Arctic Frost: FBI Fake Electors Probe, Jack Smith, and Aftermath

The Arctic Frost FBI investigation was a criminal probe opened in April 2022 into the scheme by allies of former President Donald Trump to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors after the 2020 election. It was folded into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case seven months later, ended when the case against Trump was dismissed in late 2024, and has since become the subject of a sustained Republican congressional inquiry over how its subpoenas swept up the phone records of sitting members of Congress, conservative organizations, and hundreds of Republican individuals.¹²

What the FBI Was Investigating

The case centered on certificates falsely declaring Trump the winner in seven states he had lost: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. About 60 individuals across those states signed the certificates, which were intended to be used on January 6, 2021, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay the counting of legitimate electoral votes.¹

The FBI examined potential violations of several federal statutes, including obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, seditious conspiracy, and mail fraud. Investigators identified attorney John Eastman, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn as central figures organizing the plan. The probe also looked at former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who allegedly tried to pressure the department into sending letters to state legislatures endorsing the alternate electors, along with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.¹

How the Case Was Opened

Before Arctic Frost existed as an FBI file, other federal offices were already looking at the fraudulent certificates. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the National Archives Office of the Inspector General each opened their own inquiries, and a grand jury investigation was opened by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on January 31, 2022.¹

The FBI began its internal opening process in February 2022. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Christopher Wray signed off on the case on April 4, 2022, and it was finalized as a full investigation on April 13. Arctic Frost was classified as a “Sensitive Investigative Matter,” a designation that requires high-level DOJ approval, and was run out of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.³²

FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault, assigned to the public corruption branch, drove the opening. In an email to an assistant U.S. attorney, Thibault wrote that the case would be “prioritized over all others in the Branch” and that “it frankly took too long for us to open this.”⁴ According to records released by Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, other agents raised concerns internally that the evidence justified only a “limited preliminary investigation,” but Thibault pushed for a full case.⁵ FBI whistleblowers alleged Thibault had a pattern of liking anti-Trump posts on social media, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found on January 19, 2024, that he had violated the Hatch Act. Republicans also alleged he violated the FBI’s internal “no self-approval rule” by handpicking agents to conceal his role in initiating the case.²

Documents released by Grassley and Johnson also showed that Biden White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su helped the FBI obtain the government cell phones of Trump and Pence in early May 2022. DOJ Criminal Chief John Crabb emailed Su on May 2 to coordinate the collection with Thibault; by May 4, both phones were in the FBI’s hands. Neither Trump nor Pence had been formally designated a criminal subject of Arctic Frost at that point.⁶⁵

The Handoff to Jack Smith

On November 18, 2022, Garland appointed Jack Smith as Special Counsel over both the election interference matter and the separate classified documents case at Mar-a-Lago.⁷ The Arctic Frost file moved with him. Thomas Windom, the U.S. Attorney who had been coordinating between the DOJ and the FBI’s Washington Field Office, became a senior assistant special counsel.⁸

Under Smith, the reach of the investigation grew sharply. Records the Senate Judiciary Committee later obtained show his team issued 197 grand jury subpoenas, 34 to individuals and 163 to businesses, seeking information on more than 430 named Republican individuals and entities. The subpoenas requested communications with media organizations including CBS, Fox News, Newsmax, and Sinclair; communications with White House advisers such as Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner, and Lara Trump; and broad financial data from conservative organizations including the Republican National Committee and Turning Point USA.⁹

The Congressional Phone Records

The most contested piece of the investigation is what Smith’s team did with lawmakers’ telephone data. Smith’s office issued 84 subpoenas to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, ten of which specifically requested toll records for 20 current or former Republican members of Congress. Those subpoenas came with nondisclosure orders preventing the carriers from notifying the lawmakers involved.¹⁰

Toll records show who called whom, how long the call lasted, and general location. They do not include the content of conversations. By September 27, 2023, the FBI had obtained toll records covering January 4 through January 7, 2021, for the personal phones of eight Republican senators and one Republican House member:¹¹

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.).

Later disclosures added former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mike Lee to the list of lawmakers whose records were sought.¹⁰ Records released in March 2026 showed Smith’s team had compiled an internal list of 14 members of Congress, some sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose toll records they intended to seek. One internal email read: “before we tell Main [Justice], we’re going to fire off subpoenas for so many members tolls I should make sure Jack’s aware.” The same tranche of documents indicated the team knew that members of Congress “likely have a valid Speech or Debate privilege immunizing them from compelled testimony.”¹²

Kash Patel, who was a private citizen between 2020 and 2023 and later became FBI Director, was himself a subpoena target for records from that period.¹³

How the Case Against Trump Ended

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents enjoy immunity for official acts, forcing Smith to reevaluate the indictment against Trump. After Trump won the 2024 election, Smith moved to dismiss on November 25, 2024, citing the DOJ’s longstanding position that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. A federal judge dismissed the case without prejudice.⁷¹⁴ Smith submitted his final report on January 7, 2025, maintaining that his team had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” in both the election interference and classified documents cases.

What Has Happened Since

The case itself is closed. The oversight is not.

Grassley opened his inquiry in July 2022 after FBI whistleblower disclosures.¹⁵ After the 2024 election gave Republicans control of both chambers, he and Johnson began releasing successive tranches of internal FBI and DOJ records: whistleblower documents in January 2025, phone-collection records in March, Biden White House coordination emails in April, the eight-senator disclosure in October, the 197-subpoena release later that month, the McCarthy records in November, and the 14-member internal list in March 2026.²

Under Director Patel, the FBI took action against personnel connected to the case. On October 7, 2025, Patel announced that the bureau had dismantled CR-15, the Washington Field Office public corruption squad that had aided the investigation, and had fired agents he said had “acted unethically.” The number of agents fired was not disclosed.¹⁶¹⁷ Thomas Windom, the former senior assistant special counsel, was fired by the DOJ shortly after Trump took office. He appeared before the House Judiciary Committee twice in 2025 but declined to answer many questions, citing grand jury secrecy rules; House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan referred him to the DOJ for criminal prosecution on obstruction of Congress charges on November 19, 2025.⁸

Smith sat for a deposition before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17, 2025, defending both the prosecution and the toll record subpoenas and disagreeing with Jordan’s view that they violated the Speech or Debate Clause.¹⁸

On February 10, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law held a hearing on the telecom companies’ compliance. Verizon General Counsel Chris Miller testified that the company was “compelled to provide this information under the law,” acknowledged that “our processes could have been better suited” for the situation, and announced new protocols requiring senior leadership approval before disclosing lawmaker records and a commitment to challenge nondisclosure orders that prevent notifying affected members. AT&T’s David McAtee testified that when the company’s legal team recognized that a subpoena included records for the “Ted Cruz for Senate” campaign, AT&T notified Cruz and opposed the request in court. Senator Hagerty filed a formal FCC complaint against Verizon over the disclosure of his records.¹⁹²⁰

In October 2025, Rep. Josh Brecheen led 26 House Republicans in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting a criminal investigation into Smith’s conduct, calling Arctic Frost a “grave violation of the Fourth Amendment.”²¹ The Arctic Frost documents were reportedly classified within the FBI as “Prohibited Access Files,” a designation Republican investigators allege was used to prevent congressional discovery.¹⁵

Two Accounts of the Same Investigation

Republicans describe Arctic Frost as evidence that federal law enforcement was weaponized against political opponents: a surveillance operation, driven by an agent later found to have violated the Hatch Act, that reached the phone records of conservative organizations, sitting lawmakers, and a future FBI director. Grassley has called it a “sweeping partisan fishing expedition” and “arguably worse than Watergate.” Jordan has described Smith’s actions as “constitutional abuses.”¹⁵²² Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in December 2025, argued the probe showed the FBI lacks adequate guardrails against politically motivated investigations.²³

Democrats and Smith argue the opposite: that Arctic Frost was a legitimate criminal investigation opened on “specific and articulable facts,” authorized at the highest levels of DOJ, and that the toll record subpoenas were routine tools subject to judicial oversight. At the February 2026 telecom hearing, Democrats on the subcommittee said the records were obtained through “legally issued subpoenas” in a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn a presidential election.¹⁹ Smith, in his deposition, rejected the political-motivation framing and said his case relied on “Republicans who put their allegiance to the country before the party.”¹⁸

Additional document releases and hearings are expected through 2026.

1
U.S. House Judiciary Committee. FBI Arctic Frost Investigative Documents
2
Senate Judiciary Committee. Arctic Frost
3
Lawfare. The Paranoid Style in American Oversight, Part I
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The Washington Times. Exposing FBIs Dirty Deeds
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Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley, Johnson Release Additional Arctic Frost Records
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Just the News. Biden White House Secured Trumps Phone for FBI Jan 6 Probe
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U.S. Department of Justice. Report of Special Counsel Smith, Volume 1
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The Hill. Jordan Referral of Top Prosecutor
9
Senate Judiciary Committee. Jack Smith Subpoenaed Records for Over 400 Republican Targets
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U.S. Senate (Grassley). Grassley Demands Answers From Telecom Companies
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Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden FBI Spied on Eight Republican Senators
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Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley Releases New Arctic Frost Records
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Senate Judiciary Committee. Arctic Frost Was an Overreach of Monumental Proportions
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Military.com. Senate GOP Expands Arctic Frost Probe
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U.S. Senate (Grassley). QandA Arctic Frost
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National Review. Kash Patel Says FBI Fired Agents, Dismantled Unit Behind Spying on GOP Senators
17
Axios. FBI Kash Patel Agents Fired
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Jack Smith Deposition Transcript. Smith Deposition Transcript, December 2025
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The Well News. Senate Panel Grills Telecom Executives About Arctic Frost Phone Records
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KATV. Phone Companies Grilled Over Subpoenaed Lawmaker Records
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Rep. Brecheen. Congressional Letter on Operation Arctic Frost
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Axios. Trump January 6 Republican Senators FBI Arctic Frost
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U.S. Government Publishing Office. House Judiciary Committee Hearing, December 2025