Senator Grassley (00:25):
Good afternoon, everybody. A little bit of history before I get to what we're releasing today. I started the investigation into Arctic Frost July 2022, based on whistleblower disclosures. Based on these disclosures, we know that weaponized taxpayer-funded agents and prosecutors advanced the investigation. As Arctic Frost advanced, 92 Republican organizations or individuals were targeted. Not just Trump. And they were added to its scope. And author of that targeting list was Special Agent Walter Giardina. He's the same weaponized agent who was involved in other cases against Republicans, including Peter Navarro.
(01:37)
We've learned Jack Smith secretly obtained phone record data from at least eight senators and one congressman. I've recently been informed by Verizon that at least 11 members with Verizon accounts were affected. That includes a hard line for Senator Cruz's office, and a staffer cell phone for former Senator Loeffler. AT&T informed me they challenged the legal basis for Jack Smith's efforts and Smith backed down.
(02:21)
So today we're making public new records that I've obtained through legally protected whistleblower disclosures. A 197 subpoenas were issued by Jack Smith and his team. These subpoenas were issued to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, including financial institutions. And one of the points of contact on many of these subpoenas was that person I previously named, Special Agent Walter Giardina.
(03:06)
The subpoena requested records and communications related to over 430 individual and organizations. All of them appear to be aimed at Republicans. A subpoena to Event Strategies, requested records relating to Turning Point USA and the Republican Attorney General's Association. One subpoena to Apple sought records relating to Trump and the January 6th prison choir. Earlier this year, I obtained emails between and among J.P. Cooney, one of Jack Smith's prosecutors. That email exchange was March 2023, about a partisan news article on January 6th, and this is what Cooney said in the email, "Can we do some work to nail down Trump's role in this, perhaps with the same process on Ed Henry's LLC?"
(04:20)
Just the next month, April 2023, Jack Smith and his team subpoenaed Apple for records relating to the very issue. A subpoena to an individual sought records and communications with "any member, employee, or agent of the legislative branch of government." Another subpoena to an individual sought records relating to communications with media companies such as CBS, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, Sinclair, and others. Other subpoenas to a bank individual and businesses sought records relating to White House advisors Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner and Lara Trump. Some subpoenas to individuals and businesses sought statistical data and analysis relating to donors and fundraising efforts. Arctic Frost was the vehicle by which FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. Contrary to what Smith has said publicly, this was clearly a fishing expedition. If this had happened to Democrats, they'd be as rightly outraged as we are outraged. We're making these records public in the interests of transparency, and so that the American people can draw their own conclusions. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson (06:17):
Thank you, Chairman Grassley. I want to thank the Chairman. I want to thank his staff for their tenacity and their cooperation in all of our joint investigations.
(06:27)
I think it's important to note that the records that we are now making public and for personal transparency were not obtained from the agency, they were obtained through a whistleblower. So my first point is we need more whistleblowers. We need people, men and women inside these agencies who have integrity who want to see the integrity and credibility of the Department of Justice of the FBI restored, come forward. Because right now, I think, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi are overwhelmed by all the messes they're trying to clean up. Their agencies have been… lost a lot of personnel, people simply couldn't serve the Trump administration. It's hard to hire people because of all the lawfare. And there are still partisan actors burrowed in trying to sabotage their efforts. So we need whistleblowers. The reason they come forward to Chairman Grassley is because he's been such a champion of whistleblowers. So again, I thank him for that.
(07:28)
What is revealed in those 1,700 pages of documents, in those 197 subpoenas, is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list. I'm old enough to understand how toxic a term that was under Richard Nixon. This is far worse, far worse, orders of magnitude worse. People need to understand how politicized the Biden administration turned all these agencies. And again, the best way to describe President Biden's attitude were his exact quotes. How he thought basically half America were domestic terrorists. In September 2022 in front of Independence Hall, he said, "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our Republic." A year later in New York City, "Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy." Now, nothing could be further from the truth. That is a level of paranoia that's actually astonishing. But the fact that 38 Wisconsinites are on that enemies list… I know most of those individuals. They are God-fearing, country-loving, law enforcement supporting people who want to see America succeed… The fact that they are on a Biden administration enemies list, were targeted by that administration, is outrageous. It should shock every American. And so I am calling on, and I appreciate all the members of the Judiciary Committee, we need to get to the bottom of this. We need to do everything we can to assist Director Patel and AG Bondi, in making sure that they have the staff to take control over these agencies. They're the heads of them. I don't think they have the control. I think they're being sabotaged within.
(09:24)
But the American people need to understand exactly what happened. And again, I'm calling on members of the Judiciary Committee to help Senator Grassley and myself get to the bottom of this so we can expose this, so this doesn't happen again in America. This has to end. With that, I'll turn it over to Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn (09:41):
Thank you. I want to thank Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson for their perseverance in this investigation.
(09:52)
This is the United States of America. It's not a banana republic. It's not a country that condones partisan lawfare against your political opponents. We don't have the time to go through all of the many ways that the Democratic Party and President Trump's opponents tried to target him and tried to destroy him, including people like James Comey, who single-handedly wanted to get a special counsel appointed, which were of two-year investigation followed with no result, no evidence of any legal violation. But I can't think of any greater evidence of weaponization in the fact, as you heard from Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson, this extended far beyond President Trump and extended to President Trump's supporters, not only here in the United States Senate, but more broadly.
(10:55)
Jack Smith did not act alone. Yes, he was a special counsel. He was appointed by Merrick Garland, and he had responsibilities to report to Merrick Garland, the attorney general, Joe Biden's, attorney general, under the rules regarding special counsel. Merrick Garland was a member of Joe Biden's cabinet. He was willing to do whatever Joe Biden and his political operation wanted him to do, including destroying President Trump, including abusing our justice system for partisan purposes.
(11:32)
And here, to me, is the most troublesome part of all this. If they would do that to the president of the United States, if they would do this to United States senators and members of Congress, what would they do to you, people who don't enjoy the bully pulpit or the platform that elected representatives have? This ought to be a chilling message to each and every American who loves this great country and believes in our constitutional system and equal justice under the law. Thank goodness for Senator Grassley and Senator Johnson for their investigation. But we will get to the bottom of this. Senator Cruz.
Senator Cruz (12:23):
Arctic Frost is Joe Biden's Watergate. Merrick Garland was a fundamentally corrupt attorney general. Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor. This was a political enemies list from the beginning. 197 subpoenas for 430 Republican entities and individuals. That is an absolute and egregious abuse of power. The
Senator Cruz (13:00):
The Biden Justice Department signed off on issuing subpoenas for the phone records of at least nine US Senators. 20% of the Republicans in the United States Senate were the target of this phishing expedition. They did so in complete contravention of the Constitution of separation of powers, of the speech and debate clause, of free speech, of basic rights of privacy. This is an executive who believes it is justified spying on their opponents in the legislature because they convinced themselves the ends justify the means.
(13:51)
I want to talk to you about one of those subpoenas. One of those subpoenas went from Jack Smith to AT&T, seeking my cell phone communications. It went to AT&T, and I actually want to commend AT&T for doing the right thing. AT&T is based in Texas. AT&T looked at that subpoena and they went to their legal counsel, and they said, "What should we do with that subpoena?" And their legal counsel said, you cannot comply because this is protected by the speech and debate clause of the US Constitution.
(14:26)
And so AT&T declined to comply. Did not hand over my cell phone records. Now, one might ask ordinarily, a phone company being asked to hand over the phone records of a sitting senator would notify that senator. Well, there was a reason AT&T did not do so. Accompanying the subpoena was an order, which I have in my hand right here, an order that was signed by Judge James E. Boesberg. Now, who is Boesberg? Boesberg is that radical leftist judge who is out of control, who has been issuing nationwide injunctions, one after the other, trying to stop President Trump from carrying out his mandate from the voters.
(15:18)
Judge Boesberg issued an order to AT&T and signed that order, prohibiting AT&T from informing me of this subpoena for at least one year. And Judge Boesberg gave the basis for that order. And I'm going to quote from the order Judge Boesberg signed. "The court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation."
(15:59)
That's an order a judge signed. Now I can tell you right now there is precisely zero evidence to conclude that I am likely to destroy or tamper with evidence or to intimidate potential witnesses. Zero evidentiary basis for that. This order is an abuse of power. This order is a weaponized legal system. My assumption, we don't have the subpoenas that were issued for the other senators, but my assumption is Judge Boesberg printed these things out like the placemats at Denny's, one after the other.
(16:40)
We don't know that for a fact, but I feel confident that he concluded it's likely that Lindsey Graham would destroy evidence and Marsha Blackburn would destroy evidence and Eric Schmidt would destroy evidence and Chuck Grassley would destroy evidence. If a litigant makes a claim for which there is no factual basis, that litigant is subject to sanctions in federal court.
(17:04)
And if a judge signs an order reaching a factual conclusion for which there is zero evidence whatsoever, that judge is abusing his power. I am right now calling on the House of Representatives to Impeach Judge Boesberg. Judge Boesberg put his robe down, stood up and said, "Sign me up to be part of the partisan vendetta against 20% of the Republicans in the Senate." That is a dereliction of duty and a violation of the judicial oath.
(17:40)
And I want to thank Chairman Grassley and Chairman Johnson for pursuing this tenaciously like a dog on a bone. We are going to get the answers of every person who signed off on this abuse of power. And mark my words, there will be accountability for these zealots who wanted to corrupt the Department of Justice and corrupt the judiciary in order to try to attack their enemies list. That is unconstitutional. It is immoral, and it is wrong. Senator Kennedy.
Ashley Moody (18:18):
I'm next. Well, I'm one of those senators that did have their records revealed. Verizon is my wireless carrier. And Verizon never challenged, never moved to quash. They complied with the subpoena that went forward on our records. Now, Ted talked about the speech and debate clause. This is also a violation of our First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights.
(18:57)
It is a violation of the separation of powers. It is a violation of the Stored Communications Act. I am looking forward to bringing Jack Smith before us. I am looking forward to bringing the wireless companies before us, and finding out exactly what happened. No citizen of the United States should ever be subject to treatment like this. And as Senator Cornyn said, if they are doing this to us, what did they do to all the moms and dads that went to school board meetings? What did they do to the pro-lifers that stood on a sidewalk and held a sign? What did they do to people that were supporting President Donald Trump, or people that were supporting Republican candidates?
(19:58)
Jack Smith moved forward after Christopher Wray wrote a memo on April 4th of '22, and you all should read the memo. It is how to write. I mean, it is going to be textbook for how to write a phishing expedition memo. Nebulous vague language alleging assuming things that should never be done. And then Lisa Monaco puts her mark on it encouraging Merrick Garland to sign it so that they could put Jack Smith in as a special counsel.
(20:48)
Thank goodness Kash Patel has fired every single person that was in that CR-15 unit, every single one of them. But we need to have hearings. We have encouraged the DOJ to refer Jack Smith to the Office of Professional Conduct, and they need to work with us to provide the documents so we can have a more fulsome picture about what has transpired with this. It is worse than Watergate. It is deep. It is wide, and we are just beginning to scratch the surface. Okay, and Schmidt,
Lindsey Graham (21:32):
We'll do it by height. I'll go.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
You're on the short end of that one, bit-
Lindsey Graham (21:37):
Yeah. I'm closer to the earth. So here's what I'm thinking about. If Trump had not run in 2024, would any of this happened?
Speaker 1 (21:47):
No.
Lindsey Graham (21:47):
So what I want to explain to the people of the country is that within several days of him announcing, "I'm to seek the White House again," an avalanche began to form. And I really do believe that none of this would've been happening if Trump had set out the 2024 cycle. But once he announced, I'll have my own chart one day, we'll show you what happened, and when it happened. Within about eight months of announcing, he had 91 felony charges against him in Georgia in New York and other places.
(22:27)
So here's what I think that when he said he wanted to have a political comeback, it triggered the Democratic machine to destroy him before he could ever get started. And in their effort to destroy him, there were no boundaries. The goal was to stop Trump, and to look at anything and everything that could stop Trump and ignore the Constitution, and a lot of other things. I was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in January, 2021. I don't know about you, but I'm offended that somebody in 2023 would subpoena my phone records to find out where I was at when I called somebody and who I called and where they were at. It's not their damn business. I have a constitutional duty like the rest of us here as chairman of the committee regarding the 2020 election. I don't think the 2020 election bothered anybody until Trump decided to run in 2024 legally.
(23:34)
So what I want to do is pursue what happened system-wide. Was there contact between Jack Smith and Fani Willis? I got caught up in that crap. I'd spent over a million dollars. Now, she's been kicked off the case. Was there a coordination between Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James? Did they talk? Did they share information? Is it just an accident that all this happened within days of Trump announcing, and within eight or nine months, the Republican candidate, one of the candidates for president, had 91 felony charges? And the deepest blue districts in the frigging country.
(24:21)
You think that happened by accident? I don't think so. And we're going to get to the bottom of it. And I want to know, was there any coordination between Fani Willis and New York by Jack Smith? We're going to get every piece of paper we can get, and I want Jack Smith to come forward, but I want the information first. He's not coming and testify when we're in the dark. To the Justice Department, please expedite the requests made by Senator Grassley and Johnson to give us any information that may exist between Jack Smith and Fanie Willis, Alvin Bragg and Letitia James.
(25:01)
I want to know, did they talk? If they talked, what did they talk about and when did they talk as to me? I want to know why Verizon did the opposite of AT&T. I want to know what they asked for, and how deep and how wide it went.
(25:19)
Now I want to know if there's an order signed by a federal judge basically slandering me saying, "You can't tell Lindsey Graham because he'll do bad things. Now, if that happened, I'm not going to let it go. I'm not give it a pass, nor is Ted or the rest of us. So we're going to get to the bottom of it for the benefit of the future. If this can happen to Trump, it can happen to anybody that the system doesn't like, and the system one day can come after you, is what's being said here.
(25:54)
So people literally need to pay a price for this. Some people may need to go to jail, some people may
Lindsey Graham (26:00):
… need to be fired, but if they violated my constitutional rights, if they trampled on the separation of powers involving me, I'm going to sue the hell out of these people.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think what happens sometimes in this town is that we have multiple news cycles in one day and big events can sort of get lost in all the things that are happening in the news of the day. But I think that in this instance, I can't think of a bigger political scandal in the last 100 years. So if you want to compare it to Watergate, this is 100 times worse than Watergate and here's why.
(26:35)
To sort of amplify the point that Senator Graham was making, three days after President Trump announced he was running for president, this system was weaponized against him. Jack Smith, who is notorious in prosecutor world as being a Stalin like, show me the man, I'll show you the crime prosecutor. That's the guy you appoint when you want to get your political opponent. He's a dirt bag. A dirt bag. And I hope he comes before this committee. He's got a lot to answer to.
(27:07)
He not only went after President Trump, he went after sitting senators. At the time, I was the chairman of the Republican Attorney's General Association, Ashley Moody was also on the executive board. He came after us and also hundreds of other people who happened to be Republicans in the United States of America. What else happened? The number two prosecutor in Atlanta, a state prosecution of President Trump, which was ridiculous to begin with, somehow meets with the White House.
(27:35)
The number three person at the Department of Justice leaves the number three job at the Department of Justice to go work for Alvin Bragg, a state prosecutor. Why is that? This was an effort to go after political opponents in America like we have never seen before. It can never happen again. And let me pull a couple people out outside of Jack Smith.
(27:57)
Judge Boasberg. Judge Boasberg gave a speech about how he was going to thwart the Trump agenda before he got those cases. He was not the assignment judge. The DC courts have a daily assignment judge. He wasn't the assignment judge. He's on vacation. Somehow gets these cases at 1:00 in the morning. Was he tipped off? Did somebody tell him these cases against President Trump and his agenda now were coming? I don't know. We should find that out.
(28:28)
But Judge Boasberg, what he did to what he did to Senator Cruz and maybe other senators, absolutely. And I don't say this lightly, absolutely is worthy of impeachment proceedings. There has to be accountability. The American people have heard a lot about this and you're going to hear more. We should have Watergate style hearings on this for months. If we're ever going to root this out, we have to be serious about it and consequences have to follow. Resignations, firings, criminal prosecutions. You simply can't, in this country, use the justice system to throw people in jail because they have a red jersey on or a blue jersey on. It's completely unacceptable, but they never forgave President Trump for coming down the escalator in the first place. That's what this whole thing is about. And they can't actually believe they're in the position now that the American people sent him back.
(29:24)
And if he didn't win, not just did he run. If he wouldn't have won, we would never know any of this stuff.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
It's just the mere fact that he won, delivered a historic political comeback, nobody alive today has ever seen. Is this an issue? So we have to actually do something about it or it will happen again. I want to thank Chairman Grassley for his leadership only because of the respect that he has with whistleblowers and his dogged determination and that of Senator Johnson, are we even here today? And there's a lot more to come. This is just what we know right now. There's a lot more that's going to come.
Ashley Moody (30:00):
Well, we appreciate you hanging with us and paying attention as we went through all of this today. If you don't know me, I'm Ashley Moody. I am the most junior member of the judiciary committee. But I showed up in January. I've been here nine months and I cannot tell you how shocked I have been at what transpired under the last administration.
(30:24)
I now show up with a background as not only a lawyer, a federal prosecutor, a judge for over a decade, and the attorney general of Florida to make sure that this country gets back on course. Because let me tell you about countries like Venezuela whose own government went after their enemies, and that didn't just include those who were rightfully and duly elected by the people, they went after news organizations and journalists. They went after allies and people who supported freedom and democracy.
(31:04)
And most of the people from that country who fled reside now in the state of Florida. Meeting with former Supreme Court justices from Venezuela, I heard time and time again. This story that we're telling you today. You heard Senator Cruz tell you that a judge said that he may destroy evidence. This is one of the preeminent lawyers in our country who argued in front of the Supreme Court, who has dedicated his life to service, who fights for the future of this country. And you had an administration go after him?
(31:45)
If you are issuing subpoenas, you're saying they're related to a criminal investigation, and you had a judge say that he could destroy evidence? Think about that. They were trying to wipe out the leaders of a cause for a next generation from elected leaders to news media, multiple outlets, journalists, even donors. If you're watching this right now, oh yes, there were even subpoenas issued on donors, your information. If you believed in a cause and thought so highly of it, those things that we stood for and you put your money where your mouth was, your information was sought.
(32:28)
So when you hear them say, imagine that they're doing this to us, they could do this to you, they did do it to you. And we only know this because the President was elected again. And I can tell you right now, you've heard them say, "We need to do our jobs. Impeachment needs to be on the table." Impeachment wasn't just a theory or an idea or some hypothetical one day. If there was ever an instance to root out judges that were not following the law or not being independent or were not living up to their oath, this is it. Impeachment cannot be a scarecrow.
(33:08)
We must use that tool to make sure the public can trust in our judiciary again, can trust in our justice system again. Because if you ask the Supreme Court justices that fled to the United States from Venezuela, they would tell you when their justice system went, when the people no longer trusted that it was independent, they lost their nation. And I, for one, as the rookie of judiciary and the rookie of the United States Senate are here to fight for this country. It will not fall under our watch and you have our word.
Senator Grassley (33:44):
Direct your questions to whichever senator you want to ask them to. Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Thank you so much. To anyone, I'm Alison Steinberg with LindellTV and Mike Lindell himself is actually mentioned in the judiciary document release involving Arctic Frost. When can Lindell and really all other Americans know what to extend, and by what means they were targeted and/or surveilled in all of this? And will there be a full list released of every American that was involved?
Senator Grassley (34:15):
Well, I think my colleagues could speak to this as well, but I think that we're going to just prove what the government has tried to do. We get more documents to do it, and we don't know everybody that's probably been involved yet, but we've got evidence that too many people and this process should have never gone ahead. Anybody else want to say anything? Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Thank you, sir. I know we've had a lot of special counsels in recent years and I know that you guys in the judiciary are planning on investigating this. Is this something that you think the Trump administration should appoint the special counsel to investigate?
Senator Johnson (34:55):
I'd love to handle that. So having been involved in investigations now for about 10 years, the first thing I notice when there's a special counsel or a criminal investigation, we never get access to the information. And if crimes aren't charged, that all gets sealed and the American public never knows what happens. So I've called on Kash Patel, Pam Bondi do a rigorous internal investigation for the purpose of turning those documents over to Congress so that we can examine people. We can take testimony. We can hold hearings so the American people know what happened. We bind this up in a legal process right away, we'll never know. So I am, at some point in time, criminal referrals. At some point in time, criminal investigations, prosecutions, or special counsels, but that should not be the first thing we should do.
Senator Grassley (35:41):
I would see this process if a special counsel was appointed, whoever made that decision to appoint it, they'd want to shut down our investigation. Yes, over there.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Senator Grassley, do you agree with your colleagues that Judge Boasberg should be impeached? And if so, what do you think that process would look like?
Senator Grassley (36:04):
I'm sorry. I've got hearing problems, so speak louder.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
Do you agree with your colleagues that Judge Boasberg should be impeached, as they just mentioned? And if so, how would that process play out?
Senator Grassley (36:15):
With the hearings, you mean?
Speaker 5 (36:18):
Mm-hmm.
Senator Grassley (36:18):
Well, first of all, we want to make sure that we have all the documents, all the information that we can possibly get so we know when these people that come before us, they know what to say or not to say, and we've got to make sure that we got the document, so when they lie to us, we can challenge them.
Lindsey Graham (36:39):
Can I say something about that? Impeachment starts in the house. And I think what Ted is saying is based on this order, he hopes the house will look at whether or not this judge abused his authority. I am 1000% supportive of that idea. I cannot believe that a federal judge would sign an order withholding, informing a senator for a year regarding a request coming from Jack Smith because they think Ted Cruz would tamper with witnesses, withhold or destroy evidence. That's unbelievable. What made you think that? What evidence did you have?
(37:25)
That really did shut down the systems as it's supposed to … You're supposed to tell us when we have our phone records asked for. That's actually a law somewhere. Well, the judge overrode that. Why? How could he possibly conclude that? What evidence did he have? If there's no evidence, then I think he chilled the ability of Senator Cruz to be able to react in real time and violated the way this whole system's set up. They're supposed to call us. We had a judge's order saying, "Don't tell Ted for a whole year because Ted may destroy evidence and tamper with witnesses." That is BS. I hope somebody will look at that.
Senator Cruz (38:13):
And just one tweak. The judge didn't say, "I may destroy evidence." The judge signed an order that says, "The court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses and serious jeopardy to the investigation." And that is utterly without basis in fact. There was no evidence to support that. If the prosecutor made that representation, the prosecutor perjured himself.
Lindsey Graham (38:47):
Amen.
Senator Cruz (38:48):
And I'd bet 20 bucks, this judge cranked out an order like that for every single senator down up here. We just happened to have mine,
Senator Cruz (39:00):
… but it's boilerplate. If you're a Republican, you're on the enemy's list, I find that you will destroy evidence. And so, we're going to let the executives surveil you without Congress ever knowing about it.
Senator Grassley (39:13):
Let me apologize to you for not hearing your question right. Go ahead.
Senator Johnson (39:18):
Sir?
Speaker 7 (39:19):
Can we talk a little bit about what these units were looking at, what they were trying to pull back? Are we talking about fundraising around January 6th? We just didn't really get a clear understanding of what those units were, what they were trying to look at in these Republican organizations.
Senator Johnson (39:34):
Well, an awful lot of it was about the elector case, which you have to understand. I mean in Wisconsin, we had an alternate slate of electors. We had probably the most experienced and knowledgeable election attorney-judge, Judge Troupis, handle the president's case. He thought in the best of interest of his client that he would appoint an alternate slate of electors. So if he prevailed, he wouldn't end up like Al Gore before the Supreme Court. Well, even if you win, you don't have an alternate slate of electors.
(40:04)
They tried to criminalize that. Even though our attorney general's office said that there's nothing improper about that alternate slate of electors, that the news calls those fake electors. The attorney general now of Wisconsin is trying to put Judge Troupis away for life. He's criminalizing it. He's indicted him on felonies.
(40:27)
So a lot of it was about the whole alternate elector part, but, by and large, it was just a weaponization. It was. I mean the timeline … I meant to do that. I want to keep my remarks short, but let's just go through the timeline. It's important.
(40:42)
In April of 2022, Garland approves that elector case. That's April '22. August of '22, they raid Mar-a-Lago. September 19th was the first subpoenas issued in this whole investigation. As other senators pointed out, November 15th, Trump announces candidacy. Three days later, Jack Smith was appointed. June 2023, Jack Smith indicts Trump. August, he indicts him again. In August 6th, there's a briefing on Jack Smith's Arctic Frost case, including log call collection from nine members of Congress. That happened after all this occurred. What are they doing collecting records after that point?
(41:27)
The final point of this, in November of 2023, Lisa Monaco changes the procedures on collecting telephone information or information on members of Congress. Somebody at some point in time realized we better cover our backside. So, again, this was an enemy's list. This was a political witch hunt. It's all politicized. It's all about trying to keep President Trump on office.
Senator Cruz (41:51):
Let me add a little bit in answer to your question. So President Trump announced his candidacy in November of 2022. This subpoena was signed on May 25th of 2023. So it was about six months after he announces his candidacy. I assume the others were contemporaneous, although we don't have that information.
(42:11)
You asked, what did it cover? Here's what the attachment to the subpoena says. "Provide the following records from January 4th, 2021 through January 7th, 2021. Subscriber information. Names including subscriber names, user names, and screen names, addresses including mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, and email addresses, all call detail records including but not limited to detail records for inbound and outbound calls, text messages, direct connect, and voicemail messages." So every text that a sitting senator received, every text that a sitting senator sent, every voicemail that you had, all of the data the phone company had, length of service, including start date types of service, and it goes through means of source of payment for such service. It goes through record of sessions, times, and durations and temporarily assigned network addresses such as internet protocol addresses associated with those sessions. So they're looking for, among other things, geolocation of where you were.
(43:18)
This is flat-out surveillance. By the way, the Supreme Court has concluded that law enforcement can't get geolocation from a cellphone without particularized evidence of a crime. They didn't have that. This was a phishing expedition to say, "Give me everything you got on 20% of the Republicans in the Senate."
Speaker 8 (43:39):
Like 30 months after the 2020 election.
Speaker 9 (43:44):
Just real quick, Jack Smith recently said he wants to testify in the Republican Senate. I know that [inaudible 00:43:48] preconditions. First, do you have an update on whether or not he'll testify and any of those preconditions stand out to you? Do you have a problem with any of them?
Senator Johnson (43:56):
You're saying Jack Smith wants to testify?
Speaker 9 (44:00):
In the Republican Senate.
Senator Johnson (44:01):
Yeah. Again, we need the documents first so we can determine whether he's telling us the truth or not. Otherwise, he comes in with all the advantage. So, no, we need those documents. That's why we need Kash Patel. We need them to gain control of their agency, which is difficult to do, to turn these records over. So we're prepared to either have them give a transcribed interview or do a hearing. I will say too I mean Senator Cruz talked about his subpoena. We've released the subpoenas. They are broad. These are not narrow, targeted subpoenas. They're looking for everything, but the kitchen sink. I mean, trust me, you would not want to get a subpoena like that.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Let me also put, just from the AG perspective, if it wasn't for … When I was AG and the Republican AGs pushed back on the Biden agenda. We took the vaccine mandate to the Supreme Court, we won.
Speaker 10 (44:51):
[inaudible 00:44:52].
Speaker 2 (44:51):
On the student loan … And won. We took the student loan debt forgiveness case to the Supreme Court, and we won. We fought against all the overreach from COVID. We took on all those issues and won. So if that's a predicate for criminal prosecution, because you're the constitutionally elected lawyer for the people of your state pushing back against illegal activity from a president, I can't think of a more chilling activity that this previous administration headed by Biden, and then of course his minions who were doing his dirty work were. That's why, again, I think it's just easy to kind of like, "Oh, whatever. There's another story," and, "Oh, there's another … " If you put this in its full context and laid it out in a book, you would not think it happened in the United States of America.
Senator Grassley (45:37):
Who wants the very last question?
Senator Johnson (45:39):
You.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Thank you. Piggybacking off of this question about Jack Smith's public testimony, if that's happening. You guys are saying that you need Kash Patel to get you those documents. Do you have any estimate on a timeline of what that would look like? Are you sending people to help? What is that … You're saying you need staff.
Senator Johnson (45:59):
So what I can just say in terms of my own staffs working with Kash Patel … And, again, he's doing everything he can, but we're getting reports that they are having very difficult time getting documents. Same problem with Bobby Kennedy or HHS. For radical transparency, it took months for him to break the logjam inside HHS to give us the documents. So, again, this is a challenge. That's why, again, the Judiciary Committee has got to do everything they can to help Kash Patel get control of his agencies, give us those documents.
Senator Grassley (46:31):
From my perspective here, I would simply say this, that I think that we're getting maximum cooperation from the FBI somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Justice. One of two things. Either it takes a long time to go through this stuff or they're looking for an excuse not to give it. But, quite frankly, we've got to have the attorney general eject the people up that are under her, that are keeping us from getting these documents.
(47:04)
I made that statement not only do you just now, but in one of our hearings within the last two weeks, made very clear that this is something that we're trying to get out to the public to make sure all the wrong that's been done to President Trump over the last 10 years, and for the historical reason to make sure it doesn't happen again, we want this out. I would think that it would be in Trump's own interest to tell the Justice Department that this stuff ought to be made public so that we never have it happen again, not just to him but to anybody else.
Senator Johnson (47:48):
Thank you much.
Speaker X (47:48):
Thank you [inaudible 00:47:59].