Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday argued the Biden-era Justice Department’s move to surveil Republican lawmakers and organizations through the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation is comparable to the Watergate scandal.
“Arctic Frost is Joe Biden’s Watergate, and in fact, in terms of abuse of government power, it makes Watergate pale in comparison,” the Texas senator said during an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Features.
His comments come as former FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Arctic Frost investigation has seen increased scrutiny from Congress due to concerns that it unlawfully targeted leading Republican groups and lawmakers in violation of the Constitution’s speech or debate clause.
Arctic Frost was triggered in 2022 by special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump due to alleged election interference in 2020 in the Jan. 6 case.
Cruz said Sunday that in the investigation, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg signed off on subpoenas from Smith’s office that held “no basis,” ordering phone companies to allow the government to monitor the phone lines of nine Republican senators, including himself. Verizon complied with the subpoenas, while AT&T pushed back.
“When you have the Biden Department of Justice subpoenaing 20% of the Republicans in the Senate, it is an egregious abuse of process,” Cruz said. “It is a fishing expedition, and we need to have a full and thorough investigation and accountability for every executive branch official who signed off on weaponizing the government.”
Cruz said he believes the House should vote to impeach Boasberg. And he said there’s “a very real possibility” Congress will seek to take legislative action to prevent similar surveillance because “we don’t want either party being able to do this and just surveil the opposing party.”
“Judge Boasberg was the one who made findings that he had no basis for, and when he did that, he took off his judicial robe. He just became a partisan crusader. He joined with Jack Smith in the mission to try to stop Donald Trump from being reelected,” Cruz said.
The Texas senator claimed the sweeping Arctic Frost investigation was partisan due partly to its timing. Three days after Trump announced his 2024 reelection campaign for president, Biden’s Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, appointed Smith to investigate Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election through Jan. 6, Cruz said.
“Jack Smith was appointed with one mission: to stop Donald Trump. Do not let the American people vote for Trump as president. And he took his orders and launched a drag net, the scope of which has never been seen. He issued at least 197 subpoenas directed at over 430 individuals and organizations, all Republicans,” Cruz said.
The Texas senator said Smith sent subpoenas to AT&T for his cellphone records, voicemails, text messages, and geolocation data. He credited the company for “doing the right thing” and telling the government they couldn’t hand over the private records due to protected speech under the speech or debate clause.
“However, AT&T also got on top of that subpoena, an order signed by Judge Boasberg, that ordered AT&T, ‘You cannot let Cruz know about this subpoena’ because … he found, as a judicial matter, that if I was notified, I would destroy or tamper with evidence and tamper with witnesses. Now that is absolutely absurd. Verizon, unfortunately, did hand over the records of eight senators. The speech and debate clause did not dissuade them from doing so, and we’ve now found out that those other eight senators, those subpoenas also came with judicial orders saying you could not tell the senators,” Cruz said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) are leading a congressional inquiry into the Arctic Frost investigation.
Grassley said Wednesday that Smith had issued 197 subpoenas to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, including financial institutions, as part of Arctic Frost.
FBI’S INVESTIGATION TARGETED TURNING POINT USA, GRASSLEY SAYS
The subpoenas requested records and communications related to over 430 individuals and organizations, and “all of them appear to be aimed at Republicans,” Grassley said, saying Turning Point USA and the Republican Attorneys General Association were among organizations under government surveillance.
Arctic Frost became “the vehicle by which FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus,” Grassley concluded.