'Whack-a-mole': FBI allegedly fires, rehires, then refires agents linked to Jack Smith's anti-GOP Arctic Frost crusade



Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents last month detailing how the Biden FBI not only secretly obtained the private phone records of numerous Republican lawmakers but subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities as part of what the Iowa senator called a "fishing expedition."

Grassley noted last week that Operation Arctic Frost, the "fishing expedition" in question, "was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus."

'The road to reform is long.'

Amid the backlash over the latest insights into the Biden administration's yearslong apparent campaign to criminalize its political opponents, the FBI began canning some of the agents involved in Arctic Frost whose names appeared in the newly released documents. While the bureau handed out numerous pink slips in recent days, it evidently had issues making them stick.

Last week, the FBI reportedly fired at least two agents who had worked on the Arctic Frost investigation.

CNN originally reported that Aaron Tapp, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Antonio office who previously had an oversight role on Arctic Frost, was among those fired, though it has since indicated that he was forced into retiring.

RELATED: Bondi exposes ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ Arctic Frost action against Trump by Biden admin

Jack Smith. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On Monday, the bureau allegedly canned another four agents who worked on Smith's team: Jeremy Desor; Blaire Toleman, a Chicago-based agent who once led a now-defunct public corruption squad; David Geist, a former assistant special agent in charge of the bureau's Washington field office; and Jamie Garman, an agent who was placed on administrative leave early last month, reported Reuters.

"The public has a right to know how the government's spending their hard-earned tax dollars, and if agents were engaged in wrongdoing they ought to be held accountable," Sen. Grassley said in a statement. "Transparency brings accountability."

Multiple sources told Reuters that at least two of the terminations — Toleman's and Geist's — were rescinded later in the day, along with a number of other terminations that allegedly took place on Monday.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, had intervened on Monday to reverse the firings of least four fired FBI agents. One source said she weighed in on account of the agents' involvement in the Trump administration's crackdown on criminality in the national capital.

This last-minute rescue was, however, apparently as short-lived as the initial terminations. The FBI reportedly fired the agents again on Tuesday.

It's presently unclear how many agents were officially canned.

The FBI and Pirro's office did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

The FBI Agents Association complained in a statement on Tuesday that "the actions yesterday — in which FBI Special Agents were terminated and then reinstated shortly after — highlight the chaos that occurs when long-standing policies and processes are ignored. An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination."

"Director Patel has disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution," added the group.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, told Blaze News, "Individual accountability for participation in or oversight of weaponized operations such as Arctic Frost should absolutely be imposed. I'm glad some have been fired for this, and I am sure they will sue and be well represented."

"The personnel laws are very restrictive to accountability, which certainly makes accountability harder, especially when considering termination versus reassignment," continued Howell. "That being said, you can't have weaponized individuals still at the FBI, that just should not ever be an acceptable option. The road to reform is long."

Howell added, "I'd like to see more thought given to systemic reform at the FBI so it can't operate institutionally as it did during the Biden years especially. Whack-a-mole on weaponized individuals is tough work, but the FBI and government should also mitigate the potential for them to abuse power again."

Editor's note: Mike Howell is a contributor at Blaze News.

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Is this the insidious reason Biden's FBI chose 'Arctic Frost' for anti-Trump weaponized investigation?



"Arctic Frost" was an FBI operation greenlit in April 2022 by former Director Christopher Wray and ex-Attorney General Merrick Garland that targeted various individuals supportive of President Donald Trump and/or skeptical of the results of the 2020 election.

The investigation, which was formally assigned to special counsel Jack Smith in November 2022, ultimately resulted in the four-count indictment Smith filed in August 2023 accusing Trump of attempting to disrupt the lawful transfer of power.

It turns out that the partisan nature of the investigation was baked in at the outset — right into its name.

'They were so out of control, and thought they never would get caught.'

Following Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R) publication of documents on Friday showing that Wray, Garland, and former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco approved the opening of Arctic Frost, Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, stated that “what you should know is that they were so out of control, and thought they never would get caught, that they named this investigation after an orange to mock Trump.”

RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who's on Biden admin's 'enemies list,' expose extent of FBI's Arctic Frost

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Arctic frost is the name of a satsuma mandarin orange hybrid. Early in its investigation into Operation Arctic Frost, the Oversight Project revealed that "the corrupt FBI agents who opened this case named it this to mock" Trump.

Many of Trump's detractors — including disgraced former FBI Director James Comey — have in years past suggested that he has an orange pigmentation.

In addition to serving as a nod to fellow Trump antagonists, the alleged naming of the operation as an intended insult to Trump signals that it was, from its very inception, nothing more than a partisan campaign aimed at the ruination of the president and his allies.

Blaze News has reached out to the FBI for comment.

Editor's note: Mike Howell is a contributor at Blaze News.

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GOP senator to sue Jack Smith after his lawyers try gaslighting on Biden FBI surveillance



One of the Republican lawmakers targeted by the FBI during the previous administration is preparing to take several Biden officials to court, including Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by former Attorney General Merrick Garland on dubious legal grounds.

"There is absolutely nothing 'proper' about spying on your political opponents to further your own radical agenda," Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn noted on X. "This is further proof Jack Smith must be fully investigated and held accountable as soon as possible."

'These guys just hated Donald Trump, and they hated us because we supported Donald Trump.'

Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents from 2023 indicating that the FBI under the Biden administration obtained private cellphone records from Blackburn and eight other Republican lawmakers during its Arctic Frost operation — an investigation that ultimately morphed into Smith's federal case against President Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election.

After a briefing by FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on the alleged surveillance scheme — which Grassley said was worse than Watergate — Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the eight GOP senators targeted, said that "we were surveilled simply for being Republicans."

Bongino indicated that the FBI obtained call logs from the affected GOP lawmakers' phone carriers for the period of Jan. 4 to Jan. 7, 2021. Smith ultimately used and disclosed the records in his 2024 indictment of President Donald Trump.

There now appears to be a reckoning under way.

For starters, the FBI has canned several agents involved in Operation Arctic Frost and opened an internal investigation.

RELATED: Exclusive: House Republican seeks criminal investigation into Jack Smith's alleged surveillance scheme

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and other Republican lawmakers have called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to open a criminal probe into Smith.

"The Biden administration used Operation Arctic Frost to target its political opponents by authorizing covert surveillance on elected members of the Republican Party," Brecheen told Blaze News last week. "We cannot let the Biden administration and special counsel Jack Smith get away with this direct violation of the Constitution."

Meanwhile, Grassley has written to four telecommunications companies and five federal entities demanding answers about precisely which records were turned over to Smith as part of his elector case against Trump, noting that "there are serious constitutional questions that those communications are still subject to constitutional protections."

Lawyers for Jack Smith, Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski, tried their best in a Tuesday letter to Grassley to spin the apparent surveillance of elected officials as benign and "lawful" data collection.

'I can assure you this, we will be suing the Biden DOJ, Jack Smith, and his CR-15 team.'

"A number of people have falsely stated that Mr. Smith 'tapped' senators' phones, 'spied' on their communications, or 'surveilled' their conversations," the lawyers wrote, according to the New York Times. "Toll records are historical in nature, and do not include the content of calls. Wiretapping, by contrast, involves intercepting the telecommunications in real time, which the special counsel’s office did not do."

The lawyers further characterized the covert effort to find out who the Republican lawmakers were speaking to and when as "entirely proper, lawful, and consistent with established Department of Justice policy" and claimed that Smith was authorized to seek the records by the Biden Justice Department's Public Integrity Section.

Breuer and Koski apparently engaged in some mental gymnastics to play off the alleged surveillance scheme as business as usual, comparing it to two instances where the targets were themselves under criminal investigation, namely former President Joe Biden during the classified documents probe and former Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), who was convicted on bribery charges.

"Mr. Smith’s use of the toll records as Special Counsel was lawful and in accordance with normal investigative procedure," wrote Smith's lawyers.

Upon receipt of the letter, Grassley wrote on X, "SMELLS LIKE POLITICS."

Blackburn told Just the News that she will be suing Biden DOJ and FBI officials who targeted her, Smith in particular.

The senator suggested that the 2023 grand jury subpoena of phone records violated her First and Fourth Amendment protections of free speech and privacy; her separation of powers protection as a senator; and potentially the Stored Communications Act because Verizon, her telecommunications carrier, allegedly turned over information pertaining to where she was when she made calls.

"We know that they pulled what is called the toll data, that is every call we either made or received, the duration of the call, the individual and the number that it was to and from, and then also the physical location where we were when that call was either made or received," said Blackburn.

"I can assure you this, we will be suing the Biden DOJ, Jack Smith, and his CR-15 team, which, of course, has already been fired by [FBI Director] Kash Patel, thank goodness," noted the senator. "These guys just hated Donald Trump, and they hated us because we supported Donald Trump and we were standing with Donald Trump."

In addition to wanting to take Smith to court, Blackburn has expressed an interest in seeing the former special counsel disbarred.

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Liberal media is dead silent about the damning revelations in the declassified Durham annex



CIA Director John Ratcliffe teased on Sunday the release of previously classified intelligence pertaining to a "Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse Donald Trump of Russian collusion."

On Thursday, Ratcliffe delivered the goods, providing Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and the public by extension with the appendix to the 2023 Durham report concerning the origins of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation into bogus Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

At the time of publication, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, and other longtime purveyors of the Russian collusion hoax had apparently not yet touched the story, prompting journalist Glenn Greenwald to conclude, "The corporate media will not report on these new disclosures showing the CIA/FBI/Hillary Russiagate fraud because they were its leading perpetrators (they gave themselves Pulitzers for it)."

"They have no shame," responded Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University.

The appendix, commonly referred to as the Durham annex, provides additional insights both into the FBI's willful failure under former Director James Comey to investigate credible intelligence implicating the Clinton campaign in the creation of the Russian collusion hoax and into the bureau's subsequent cover-up.

The annex also appears to reveal:

  • Intelligence indicating that "the Clinton staff, with support from special services, is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and the 'Russian Mafia'";
  • The expectation by Leonard Benardo of George Soros' Open Society Foundations — who was apparently in touch with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee — that the FBI would play along and ultimately "put more oil into the fire";
  • Benardo's suggestion that the bogus narrative could be laundered to the media absent "direct evidence" via the companies CrowdStrike and ThreatConnect;
  • Intelligence indicating Hillary Clinton personally signed off on the collusion narrative;
  • The FBI's understanding that the intelligence concerning the Clinton plan was credible; and
  • The FBI's decision to silo the information about the Clinton plan.
— (@)

Blaze News has reached out to Schultz and to Obama's office for comment.

When pressed for comment about the Durham annex and its contents, the White House referred Blaze News to the FBI, which did not respond by deadline.

RELATED: Ratcliffe releases damning Durham annex. Here's what it reveals about Obama-Clinton Russia collusion hoax.

Photo (left): Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images ; Photo (right): Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos was among those whose lives were turned upside down by Crossfire Hurricane — an investigation that special counsel John Durham revealed was based on "raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" and reliant on the Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier.

"The conclusion of the declassified Durham index today: George Soros' team, along with Clinton, Obama and Brennan knew the whole Clinton plan for Russiagate four days before FBI opened up probe," Papadopoulos noted on X. "The FBI happily did their dirty work for them. And this is still the beginning of declass."

Grassley told Fox News shortly after publishing the annex that it's "evidence of the great depth that the deep state will go to to cover up weaponization that was going on in the FBI and the executive branch of government generally under the Obama administration."

"We know that ... the Steele dossier, paid for by the Democrats and the Clinton campaign — that it was all an effort of total distraction and to make it look like Russia was playing a very major role in helping Trump to be elected, and now we know none of that was true," Grassley added. "Now with this Durham report annex out, it finally proves that the FBI was covering up."

"The smoking gun kind of dovetails with things that Tulsi Gabbard has put out in the recent two weeks and things we had with the Crossfire Hurricane annex that I released a couple weeks ago," the senator added.

RELATED: Obama and Brennan set to reap the whirlwind: Gabbard refers evidence of 'years-long coup' to DOJ for criminal probe

Photo (left): Kevin Dietsch/Getty Image; Photo (right): Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Ratcliffe said in a statement that the declassified annex shows "the false Trump-Russia collusion narrative for what it was — a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency."

"The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax and the political abuse of our justice system it exposed," FBI Director Kash Patel said. "Today’s declassification and release of documents tied to the Durham report is another step toward that accountability. The FBI will continue working tirelessly with our federal partners at DOJ, CIA, and more to uncover the facts that should have been brought to light years ago."

While some of the bureau's baggage is now out in the open, former FBI special agent Steve Friend suggested to Blaze News that the FBI is still replete with bad actors.

When asked whether some of the same personalities who sat on the Russian collusion origins are still at the bureau, Friend said, "I know there are people that are still there and have not been flushed out — and have actually been promoted."

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Senate Confirms Bondi As The Next United States Attorney General

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Pam Bondi late Feb. 4 in a vote of 54 to 46.