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

Since former DOJ special counsel Jack Smith's alleged surveillance scheme surfaced earlier this month, House Republicans are leading the charge to bring justice.

Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, a member of the Republican Study Committee, urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to open a criminal investigation into Smith for his apparent involvement with Operation Arctic Frost, according to a letter obtained by Blaze News. During former President Joe Biden's administration, the FBI obtained private cellphone information from nine Republican lawmakers, an internal document indicated, in what appears to be an ideologically motivated instance of government weaponization.

'Weaponizing the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency to spy on political opponents is what we expect from authoritarian regimes.'

Brecheen's call for an investigation is also in accordance with President Donald Trump's executive order entitled "Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government," which Trump signed the same day he was inaugurated.

Since the scandal broke, the FBI has opened an internal investigation, firing several agents who were involved in the operation. As of this writing, the Department of Justice has not yet opened a criminal investigation, leading Brecheen and his co-signatories to be the first federal group to call for a criminal investigation into the operation.

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“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. "We cannot let the Biden administration and special counsel Jack Smith get away with this direct violation of the Constitution.”

Many prominent lawmakers, including Brecheen, have characterized the scandal as a modern-day Watergate, according to the letter obtained exclusively by Blaze News. Brecheen also warned that if high-profile politicians can have their privacy violated for ideological purposes, ordinary Americans could too.

'The Bureau could easily be directed against individual citizens.'

"The revelation that the Biden Administration directed the FBI to surveil duly elected American lawmakers is indeed a scandal of magnitude our country has not seen since Watergate," the letter reads. "Let us be clear: weaponizing the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency to spy on political opponents is what we expect from authoritarian regimes such as North Korea or Iran, not the United States."

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"The ramifications of this unprecedented scandal, however, stretch far beyond the lawmakers who were surveilled," the letter reads. "By empowering federal agents to secretly monitor the private phone calls of sitting United States Senators, Jack Smith set the sinister precedent that the same form of covert surveillance can and will be deployed against law-abiding American citizens."

"If the FBI could be so readily weaponized against powerful figures in our government, then it is not difficult to conclude that the Bureau could easily be directed against individual citizens."

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Democrats feign outrage as Trump administration shutdown layoffs hit: 'They seem to be enjoying it'

With no end in sight to the government shutdown, President Donald Trump's administration is putting Democrats in an unenviable position.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced Friday that the administration has officially begun issuing reduction in force notices, laying off over 4,200 government workers across several key departments, like Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. As the government approaches its third week of the shutdown, Democrats are left weighing their options.

'The easiest way to stop this is for five [Democrats] to come to their senses.'

These layoffs come as no surprise. Vought previously threatened Democrats with mass layoffs just days before the September 30 funding deadline. Still, Democrats are feigning surprise.

"Here's what's worse: Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. "The way forward is simple: Stop the attacks, come to the table, negotiate, and reopen the government. Until Republicans get serious, they own this — every job lost, every family hurt, every service gutted is because of their decisions.”

Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images

Democrats blocked the Republican-led funding bill that would have kept the government open and operating at virtually the same funding levels.The GOP's bill was a simple, clean, 90-page continuing resolution with no partisan anomalies, save a bipartisan line item that would boost security funds for lawmakers following Charlie Kirk's assassination.

Rather than voting alongside Republicans to keep the government open, Democrats decided to introduce their own $1.5 trillion spending bill that would reverse major legislative accomplishments achieved in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats also insisted on immediately renegotiating healthcare subsidies from the Affordable Care Act, though these aren't set to expire until the end of the year.

Democrats are in the minority in both the House and the Senate.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Senate Democrats have stubbornly voted no over a half dozen times on reopening the government. One senior Democratic aide told CNN that the party will not concede short of "planes falling out of the sky."

"The pressure thus far hasn't moved them at all," Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Blaze News during a press call hosted by the Republican Study Committee. "They seem to be enjoying it."

"I don't think anybody in the White House takes any pleasure in this at all," Johnson told Blaze News. "I've spoken to the president about this myself. Of course, I've spoken to Russell Vought as well. They're in an unenviable position."

"The easiest way to stop this is for five [Democrats] to come to their senses in the Senate and join Republicans to reopen the government."

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Exclusive: GOP slams Democrat spending plan as 'stale leftovers' riddled with radical left-wing policies

The Republican Study Committee is taking aim at House Democrats for proposing a last-minute funding plan chock-full of "radical left-wing" policy proposals.

House Republicans are set to pass a clean continuing resolution Friday to keep the lights on through November 21 ahead of the September 30 funding deadline. The GOP proposal includes minimal anomalies with the exception of increased security funds in light of Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination.

'Democrats are recklessly threatening a shutdown unless we bend the knee.'

Despite this, Democrats have taken it upon themselves to propose their own funding bill, which RSC Chairman August Pfluger (R-Texas) called "stale leftovers" from former President Joe Biden's administration.

"The Democrats' continuing resolution proposal is nothing more than stale leftovers from the Biden-Harris administration that nobody wanted the first time around, and microwaving them won't make them any more appetizing to the American people," Pfluger told Blaze News.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a memo obtained exclusively by Blaze News, the RSC contrasted the Democrats' bloated spending plan that would help fund abortion and illegal aliens with the GOP's straightforward, clean CR.

Democrats put forth a funding plan that would increase spending by nearly $1.5 trillion, including a continuation of $350 billion worth of Biden-era subsidies. The Democrats' spending bill would also continue to funnel millions in benefits to illegal aliens and left-wing media companies like PBS and NPR and would reverse nearly $5 billion in spending cuts.

"While House Republicans offer a responsible plan to keep government open at current funding levels, Democrats are recklessly threatening a shutdown unless we bend the knee to their $1.5 trillion spending spree that provides illegal aliens with access to Medicaid and spends $350 billion on extending Biden COVID credits that subsidize abortion," Pfluger told Blaze News.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

"The American people handed President Trump and congressional Republicans a decisive mandate to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse — not to capitulate to the same leftists who drove our country toward bankruptcy and were soundly rejected at the ballot box," Pfluger said.

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Exclusive: GOP lawmaker introduces bill barring illegal aliens from 'sabotaged' census

Republican Rep. August Pfluger of Texas is taking charge of codifying President Donald Trump's executive orders.

Pfluger, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, recently introduced a bill that would ensure only American citizens are counted in the United States census, according to bill text obtained exclusively by Blaze News. The legislation, dubbed the COUNT Act, will ensure that illegal aliens are omitted from the census in order to fairly apportion congressional seats.

'We cannot allow Democrats to weaponize our census.'

"The Biden administration sabotaged our census system to count millions of illegal aliens as American citizens, robbing congressional seats from law-abiding Republican states, including shortchanging my home state of Texas by at least one seat," Pfluger told Blaze News.

"This is nothing short of a constitutional crisis."

Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Under former President Joe Biden's purview, the administration effectively rigged the census to include millions of illegal aliens into the census, skewing congressional representation in favor of Democrats. As a result, everyday American citizens were overshadowed and overlooked by Democrats' desire to secure a political advantage.

The census currently does not require individuals to provide proof of citizenship, often including illegal immigrants into the official count, which later informs congressional apportionment. Despite the clear malpractice, Democrats are keen on keeping with the status quo.

In May 2024, 202 Democrats unanimously voted against the Equal Representation Act, which requires the census to include a citizenship questionnaire designed to prevent illegal aliens from being included in the total count. Senate Democrats also unanimously defeated an amendment proposed by Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee in March 2024, which would similarly require a citizenship questionnaire on future censuses.

Photo by HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images

"That's why I'm introducing the COUNT Act to permanently codify the executive order President Trump signed into law during his first term, creating a citizenship database that ensures only American citizens determine congressional representation and funding, because we cannot allow Democrats to weaponize our census again," Pfluger told Blaze News.

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Exclusive: Republicans huddle with FCC chair in closed-door meeting to dismantle DEI, liberal media machine

House Republicans met with FCC Chair Brendan Carr and Republican Study Committee Chair Rep. August Pfluger (Texas) on Wednesday to discuss the evolving media landscape under President Donald Trump's administration.

During the closed-door meeting that Blaze News was given exclusive access to, both Pfluger and Carr addressed concerns about the liberal bias in publicly funded platforms like NPR, as well as the importance of empowering local media.

Carr, who has been an FCC commissioner since 2017, homed in on the importance of free speech and the First Amendment and also of applying existing regulations evenly rather than to advance a political agenda.

'The RSC is committed to working alongside Chairman Carr to dismantle the censorship cartel, strengthen America's digital infrastructure through free-market principles, and restore free-speech rights for everyday Americans.'

"For too long in this government, particularly the last couple of years, your last name dictated how the government treated you," Carr said. "If your last name was Soros, the commission bent over backwards and gave you a special, unprecedented commission-level shortcut to buy 200 radio stations. If your last name was Musk, then you lost $800 million contracts that you lawfully got."

"Everybody now is going to get a fair shake going forward," Carr added.

In the meeting, Carr laid out a four-step plan to reduce media bias and restore the FCC's core principles, which include reining in Big Tech censorship, reinvigorating trust in national and local media, putting forward both economic and permitting reforms, and bolstering aspects of our national security.

With the support of Pfluger and RSC members, Carr is confident that he can accomplish these directives.

"We thank Chairman Carr for his bold leadership in confronting malign influences like George Soros that corrupt our media and silence conservative voices, and the committee fully supports his efforts to restore truth to our public disclosure while expanding broadband access to rural communities," Pfluger said.

"The RSC is committed to working alongside Chairman Carr to dismantle the censorship cartel, strengthen America's digital infrastructure through free-market principles, and restore free-speech rights for everyday Americans," Pfluger added.

Carr also spoke about some of the reforms he has already enacted. Prior to his becoming chair, Carr noted, DEI was the second-most highly prioritized core value of the FCC. Since then, Trump has issued an executive order uprooting DEI from all federal entities, and the FCC has followed suit.

"We've ended the FCC promotion of DEI," Carr said. "You would be outraged if you realized how much promoting DEI had been embedded in FCC work. ... We were spending millions and millions of dollars promoting DEI. Meanwhile, what fell by the wayside was the FCC's actual core work — and doing it competently — of connecting Americans."

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

Democrats feign outrage as Trump administration shutdown layoffs hit: 'They seem to be enjoying it'

Exclusive: GOP slams Democrat spending plan as 'stale leftovers' riddled with radical left-wing policies

Exclusive: GOP lawmaker introduces bill barring illegal aliens from 'sabotaged' census

Exclusive: Republicans huddle with FCC chair in closed-door meeting to dismantle DEI, liberal media machine

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