{"id":27881,"date":"2025-12-24T17:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=27881"},"modified":"2025-12-24T17:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:17:07","slug":"patel-probe-into-trump-gop-lawmakers-over-jan-6-weak-on-evidence-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=27881","title":{"rendered":"Patel: Probe Into Trump, GOP Lawmakers Over Jan. 6 Weak On Evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The FBI memo that initiated the Biden-era Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump and hundreds of his allies over their activities related to January 6 lacked substantial evidence and clear legal justification, according to several former prosecutors and FBI agents who reviewed the newly released document and identified multiple deficiencies.<\/p>\n

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The investigation, code-named Arctic Frost, was initially led by an FBI supervisor who had expressed anti-Trump sentiments and was later taken over by Special Counsel Jack Smith.<\/p>\n

The probe treated the effort by Trump\u2019s allies to submit alternate electors to Congress during the 2020 election certification as a potential criminal conspiracy \u2014 despite similar actions in two prior instances of U.S. history not resulting in prosecution,\u00a0Just the News reported.<\/p>\n

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According to the newly released materials, the FBI memo that launched the investigation in spring 2022 \u2014 around the same time Trump announced his bid for the presidency \u2014 relied heavily on interview clips from CNN as primary evidence \u201csuggesting\u201d Trump\u2019s involvement in the alleged conspiracy, the outlet added.<\/p>\n

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said Wednesday that he believes the FBI memo authorizing the Arctic Frost investigation was legally flawed and reflected the same politicization and investigative overreach seen in the 2016 Russia collusion probe, code-named \u201cCrossfire Hurricane.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jordan obtained the document from current FBI Director Kash Patel and told Just the News that both investigations targeted Trump based on weak evidence and partisan motives before ultimately being discredited.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure looks that way. \u2026 and it looks like this was just the same old weaponization, same old political focus, focus on politics, going after your political enemies,\u201d Jordan said during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise TV show.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSame mindset that said we\u2019re going to put the dossier in the intelligence community assessment, even though we know the dossier is garbage, we know there\u2019s no underlying intelligence support,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat same mindset that was there in 2016 is the mindset we see now in 2022 with Arctic Frost, and then as it transformed into Jack Smith, special counsel, later in 2022\u2014same mindset. So yeah, that\u2019s what it sure looks like,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Smith has denied any wrongdoing and said he intends to present his side of the story. Jordan has invited Smith to testify before the committee, warning that he will issue a subpoena if Smith declines to appear voluntarily.<\/p>\n

Documents released in recent weeks by Patel indicate that the Arctic Frost investigation was approved at the highest levels of the Biden administration, including by Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, with assistance from a lawyer in the White House.<\/p>\n

The inquiry centered on efforts by Republican officials in several states to submit alternate slates of electors ahead of Congress\u2019s certification of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

The probe was later transferred from the FBI to Smith\u2019s office, which issued subpoenas to hundreds of Trump allies.<\/p>\n

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday released 197 subpoenas that Smith and his Justice Department team issued \u201cas part of the indiscriminate election case against President Trump,\u201d identifying more than 400 Republican groups and individuals whose information was sought.<\/p>\n

Separately, the House Judiciary Committee disclosed that more than 160 Republicans \u2014 including many closely tied to Trump \u2014 were flagged for possible investigation under the Arctic Frost operation.<\/p>\n

The opening electronic communication (EC) that launched what became a broad investigation into Trump associates was written and approved in April 2022 under the title \u201cRequests Opening of New Investigation \u2013 Arctic Frost.\u201d<\/p>\n

The probe, designated as a \u201cSensitive Investigative Matter\u201d (SIM), was authorized by then\u2013Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault \u2014 who later left the FBI after his anti-Trump social media posts came to light \u2014 along with other senior bureau officials, including Steve D\u2019Antuono, then the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI\u2019s Washington Field Office, and Paul Abbate, who was serving as the FBI\u2019s Deputy Director at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The FBI memo that initiated the Biden-era Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump and hundreds of his allies over their activities related to January 6 lacked substantial evidence … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27882,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27881\/revisions\/27882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}