Spying on senators: What ELSE did Justice Dept. do in the Biden years?

It may not be “worse than Watergate,” as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley suggests, but the Biden FBI’s move to secretly pull the phone records of nine Republicans in Congress, including eight sitting senators, sets a recent new low in partisan abuse of law enforcement.

The Justice Department’s Arctic Frost investigation was launched in April 2022 by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault (reportedly a vicious anti-Trump partisan) before Special Counsel Jack Smith (same) took over that November; it officially began as a probe into 2020 election interference before turning into a sprawling sham.

Current Justice and FBI leadership only stumbled onto this abuse recently, and have yet to say why the Biden crew targeted Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.).

Yes, after the 2020 voting they all raised concerns about potential voter fraud or supported President Donald Trump’s post-election lawsuits, but lots of others in Congress did, too.

Worse, Arctic Frost morphed into FBI scrutiny of at least 92 right-wing groups and individuals, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.

While Smith was formally “independent,” the Justice Department still has a duty to rein in special counsels who go witch-hunting.

And secretly pulling the phone records of Republican electeds, simply because they were Republicans, is egregiously beyond the pale.

Was Attorney General Merrick Garland under orders to look the other way?

FBI Director Kash Patel says he’s fired a handful of agents over Operation Arctic Frost’s stunning invasion of privacy, but Congress plainly needs to subpoena Smith, former FBI chief Christopher Wray and anyone else who enabled these abuses.

It was bad enough when no one paid a price after the Obama CIA got caught spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee (its overseers!) in 2014; this is worse.

And as Grassley warns: “If heads don’t roll in this town, nothing changes.”