[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 10, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8597-S8598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Arctic Frost Investigation

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, if you hear the term ``Arctic Frost,'' 
for most of us in Washington, DC, it is not a meteorological term. It 
is a name that the Biden administration put on the efforts through 
Special Counsel Jack Smith to put then-citizen Trump in prison so he 
could never run for President again.
  I have been trying to make as much of this information that we 
discover public. So I come to the Senate floor now to discuss this now-
infamous Arctic Frost investigation that I and Senator Johnson of 
Wisconsin have exposed.
  As we have shown through our investigation, Arctic Frost was not just 
about putting President Trump in prison, but it was a means to an end. 
That end that the Arctic Frost investigation sought was a vehicle by 
which partisan FBI agents and partisan Department of Justice 
prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican 
political apparatus.
  As Arctic Frost became Special Counsel Jack Smith's election case, it 
also targeted over 400 Republican groups and individuals. Recently, 
Senator Johnson and I have exposed that the Special Counsel's office 
obtained phone records of at least 11 Senators and 6 Members of the 
House of Representatives--all of them Republican. I expect there will 
be more Members of Congress added to that list. Each of these subpoenas 
included a court-issued nondisclosure order.
  Recently, I made public Department of Justice documents, including 
emails. These documents showed that Special Counsel Smith's office knew 
of the constitutional implications of issuing a subpoena for 
congressional data.
  A May 17, 2023, email shows that Molly Gaston from Special Counsel 
Smith's office emailed John Keller, one of the heads of Biden's 
Department of Justice Public Integrity Section. In that email, Gaston 
consulted Keller about issuing subpoenas for Members' phone records. 
Keller, from the Department of Justice, told her that there might be 
litigation risk if you do that.
  So Smith's staff was warned.
  And the reason why? Keller said subpoenaing congressional information 
could violate the speech or debate clause of the Constitution.
  As we all know, the speech or debate clause protects Members of 
Congress from any retaliation or civil action for what is said right 
here on the floor of the House and Senate.
  Well, no kidding--they were warned.
  Of course, the Department of Justice knows that core constitutional 
activity of constitutional officers is protected in the Constitution.
  Keller's email to Gaston also notes case law saying legislators 
asserting an invasion of speech or debate may intervene and oppose 
subpoenas. So it is a constitutionally based opposition. However, 
affected Members--remember they are all Republicans--weren't afforded 
the opportunity to challenge the subpoenas, as the law would give them 
the right to do.
  It is all about the subpoenas having a nondisclosure order in it.
  Now, these nondisclosure orders, rubberstamped by a judge named 
Boasberg and others on the same court, kept secret Jack Smith's action 
against the Republican Members. So far, almost all of the nondisclosure 
orders for Members' own records were signed by Judge Boasberg.
  On November 20, 2025, I, along with Chairman Johnson and Mr. Jordan, 
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Judge Boasberg. We 
asked what information Special Counsel Smith's office presented, if 
any, to the court that led to the approval of the nondisclosure orders 
of Members' phone records, in violation of Federal law.
  We also asked Mr. Boasberg if he ever denied any Department of 
Justice nondisclosure order requests.
  Now, Judge Boasberg never answered our letter. He had Judge Robert 
Conrad, the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, 
responding on his behalf. Judge Conrad failed to fully answer our 
questions. The letter claimed that responding to our letter fully would 
``encroach upon the separation of powers.''
  Now, the court ought to have raised that concern when Special Counsel 
Smith requested the nondisclosure orders for the legislative branch 
phone records--not after it became public as a result of our getting 
these documents.
  But the limited response by the judge shows that the Federal court, 
including Judge Boasberg, essentially acted as a rubberstamp in 
approving Special Counsel Smith's nondisclosure orders.

[[Page S8598]]

  Judge Conrad's letter stated that the Department of Justice typically 
doesn't include a subpoena with a nondisclosure order request and only 
provides a signifier, like a phone number, to the court. Thus, the 
information before the court would reveal that a phone number belonged 
to a Member of Congress.
  Judge Conrad's response appears to indicate that Special Counsel 
Smith's office failed to disclose to the court that any subpoenas 
sought phone records for Members of Congress. Jack Smith took this 
egregious action even though Smith and his team knew case law was clear 
that legislators could challenge the grand jury subpoena on grounds it 
violated the speech or debate clause of the Constitution. The letter 
from Judge Conrad raises serious questions about Special Counsel 
Smith's candor--or lack thereof--before the court.

  But the volume of subpoenas issued by the special counsel's office 
should have raised alarms with Judge Boasberg and any other judges 
involved in issuing those subpoenas--alarms that maybe congressional 
records could have been swept up by the government's conduct.
  So there are some questions: Did Judge Boasberg and others even ask 
the question? Was even a small amount of due diligence done? Boasberg 
and others won't say. Not asking these simple questions appears to be a 
clear dereliction of duty.
  The actions by the Biden Justice Department and the Federal court 
raise more questions that Congress and the American people deserve 
answers to.
  These things are very important because when the power of the Federal 
Government, particularly through the Department of Justice prosecutors 
and the FBI to be politically weaponized to put anybody in prison--and 
if they can attempt to do it to a former President then and now 
President Trump for 4 years, it could be done to anybody. And we need 
to know that this should never happen again in the United States of 
America.
  So I am giving you this update. Accordingly, my oversight will 
continue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.