‘Holy Shit!’: Shawn Ryan Aghast As Charlie Kirk’s Security Leader Reads Texts He Allegedly Sent University Police
'Why he won't stand up like a man and admit this, I don't know'
Watergate was amateur hour compared to Arctic Frost
The FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation is confirmation that the left sees conservatives as enemies of the state and is fully intent on treating them as such.
Arctic Frost began in April 2022, with the approval of Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, along with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and FBI Director Christopher Wray. In November 2022, newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith took over the probe. Smith declared he was focused on the allegations of mishandling classified documents, but Arctic Frost shows he was much more ambitious. He helped turn the investigation into an effort to convict Donald Trump and cripple the Republican Party.
The report indicts Smith for failing at lawfare, not for the lawfare itself.
It was revealed last month that by mid-2023, the FBI had tracked the phone calls of at least a dozen Republican senators. Worse still, with the imprimatur of Justices Beryl Howell and James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Smith issued 197 subpoenas targeting the communications and financial records of nine members of Congress and at least 430 Republican entities and individuals.
The organizations targeted were a “Who’s Who” of the American right, including Turning Point USA, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Conservative Partnership Institute, and the Center for Renewing America.
Not content with active politicians, these subpoenas also went after advisers, consulting firms, and nonprofits. One subpoena targeted communications with media companies, including CBS, Fox News, and Newsmax. Normally, a telecommunications company should inform its clients and customers about subpoenas. But Howell and Boasberg also ordered nondisclosure orders on the dubious grounds that standard transparency might result in “the destruction of or tampering of evidence” — as if a U.S. senator could wipe his phone records or a 501(c)(3) could erase evidence of its bank accounts.
The scale and secrecy of Arctic Frost are staggering. It was a massive fishing expedition, hunting for any evidence of impropriety from surveilled conservatives that might be grounds for criminal charges. One can see the strategy, typical among zealous prosecutors: the threat of criminal charges might compel a lower- or mid-level figure to turn government witness rather than resist.
But Smith had an even grander plan. By collecting financial records, he was trying to establish financial ties between those subpoenaed and Trump. Had Smith secured a conviction against Trump, he could then have pivoted to prosecuting hundreds of individuals and entities under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This would have led to asset freezes, seizures, and further investigations.
Smith laid out a road map for crushing conservative organizations that was supposed to be implemented throughout a prospective Biden second term or a Harris presidency.
Fortunately, voters foiled Smith’s efforts.
A false equivalence
The meager coverage of Arctic Frost thus far has compared the scandal to the revelations of Watergate. But the comparison doesn’t hold. Arctic Frost involved significantly more surveillance and more direct targeting of political enemies than the Senate Watergate hearings of 1973 and 1974 managed to expose.
Setting aside campaign finance matters and political pranks, the most serious crimes the hearings exposed pertained to the Nixon administration’s involvement with break-ins and domestic wiretapping.
In the summer of 1971, the White House formed a unit to investigate leaks. Called the “Plumbers,” this unit broke into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, who was the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Transferred over to the Committee to Re-elect the President at the end of the year, the unit then broke into the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex. The hearings exposed the burglars’ connection to CRP — and to the White House.
RELATED: Trump’s pardons expose the left’s vast lawfare machine
The administration also authorized warrantless wiretaps. From May 1969 until February 1971, in response to the disclosures of the secret bombing of Cambodia, the FBI ran a 21-month wiretap program to catch the leakers. This investigation eventually covered 13 government officials and four journalists. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover submitted the wiretapping authorizations, and Attorney General John Mitchell signed them.
As a matter of optics, it was the surveillance of the members of the media that provoked the scandal. Since they were critical of the Nixon administration, it looked like the administration was targeting its political enemies. As a criminal matter, the issues were less about the actions themselves, as it was at least arguable that they were legal on national security grounds. Instead, it was more about the cover-up. When these wiretaps came up in the hearings, Mitchell and others deceived investigators, opening themselves up to charges of obstruction of justice.
A troubling parallel
One aspect revealed during the Watergate hearings could be compared to Arctic Frost. The hearings exposed extensive domestic spying that preceded the Nixon administration. The tip of the iceberg was the proposed Huston Plan of June 1970, which became one of the most sensational pieces of evidence against the Nixon administration. Named for the White House assistant who drafted it, the Huston Plan proposed formalizing intelligence coordination and authorizing warrantless surveillance and break-ins.
Nixon implemented the plan but rescinded it only five days later on the advice of Hoover and Mitchell.
Who were those Americans who might have had their civil liberties affected? It was the radical left, then in the process of stoking urban riots, inciting violence, and blowing up government buildings. The plan was an attempt to formalize ongoing practices; it was not a novel proposal. After Nixon resigned, the Senate concluded in 1976 that “the Huston plan, as we now know, must be viewed as but one episode in a continuous effort by the intelligence agencies to secure the sanction of higher authority for expanded surveillance at home and abroad.”
For years, ignoring the statutes that prohibited domestic spying, the CIA surveilled over three dozen radicals. The military and the Secret Service kept dossiers on many more. The FBI operated COINTELPRO, its surveillance of and plan to infiltrate the radical left, without Mitchell’s knowledge. And as the Senate discovered, “even though the President revoked his approval of the Huston plan, the intelligence agencies paid no heed to the revocation.” This was all excessive, to say the least.
RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who’s on Biden admin’s ‘enemies list,’ expose extent of FBI’s Arctic Frost
Watergate helped expose a far larger and longer surveillance operation against left-wing domestic terrorists. Comparing this to Arctic Frost suggests that the shoe is now on the other foot: the state regards right-wing groups as equivalent to domestic terrorists. Once, the national security state was abused to attack the left. Now, it’s abused to attack the right. This is hardly an encouraging comparison.
Lawfare for thee, not for me
There’s a third reason that the comparison to Watergate doesn’t hold. In the 1970s, abuses generated a reaction. The Huston Plan, for instance, was squashed by the head of the Department of Justice. Controversial surveillance plans wound down eventually. Wrongdoing was exposed, and the public was horrified, worsening the people's growing mistrust of government. Lawmakers passed serious reforms to rein in intelligence agencies and defend Americans' civil liberties.
Survey today’s landscape, and it doesn’t look like there will be any similar reaction. If you’re a conservative staffer, activist, contract worker, affiliate, donor, politician, or lawmaker, you’ve learned about the unabashed weaponization of the federal justice system against you without the presence of any crime. What’s even more disturbing is that this investigation went on for 32 months, longer than Mitchell’s wiretaps.
During that time, no senior official squashed the investigation, and no whistleblowers leapt to defend conservatives. There wasn’t a “Deep Throat” leaking wrongdoing, as there once was in Deputy Director of the FBI Mark Felt. There weren’t any scrupulous career bureaucrats or political appointees in the Justice Department or elsewhere ready to threaten mass resignations over a legally spurious program, as happened to George W. Bush in the spring of 2004.
No telecommunication company contested the subpoenas, as happened in early 2016 when Apple disputed that it had to help the government unlock the iPhone of one of the terrorists involved in the December 2015 San Bernardino shootings. Neither bureaucrats nor corporations are coming to the rescue of the civil liberties of conservatives.
Public opinion won’t help, either. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) has called for “Watergate-style hearings.” But they wouldn’t work. Watergate was a public-relations disaster for the presidency because it spoke to an American public that held its government to a moral standard of impartial activity. Television unified this audience while also stoking righteous fury over the government’s failure to meet that standard.
The hearings were effective only because they reached a public sensitive to infringements of civil liberties and hostile to the weaponization of the state against domestic targets. But 2025 is not 1975. Even if one could unite the American public to watch the same media event, televised hearings on Arctic Frost wouldn’t bring about a major shift in public opinion. In fact, many voters would likely approve of Arctic Frost’s operations.
For one part of the country, lawfare happens and it’s a good thing. Jack Smith’s lawfare does not embarrass or shame the left. If anything, he is criticized for insufficiently weaponizing the law.
To date, the largest exposé of his methods to reach the legacy media, published in the Washington Post, criticizes Smith for prosecuting Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents in Florida (where the alleged crime occurred) rather than in the District of Columbia. It’s an impressive investigative report, assembling aides and experts to showcase Smith’s mistake. Left unstated is the answer to the naïve question: If the offense was committed in Florida, why was it a mistake not to pursue the case in D.C.? Because that was the only district where Smith could guarantee a favorable judge and jury.
To the conservative mind, most Americans still believe that protecting civil liberties matters more than attacking one’s enemies.
The report indicts Smith for failing at lawfare, not for the lawfare itself. In this environment, where lawfare is already taken for granted as the optimal strategy to defeat the enemy, exposing the details of Arctic Frost is like publicizing the Schlieffen Plan's failure in 1915 and expecting the Germans to be ashamed enough to withdraw. They already know it didn’t work.
Exposing the plan won’t change anything. The election of Jay “Two Bullets” Jones as Virginia’s attorney general is an indication not only of the presence of a fanatic at the head of Virginia’s law enforcement but also of what a good proportion of the Democratic electorate expects from the state’s most vital prosecutor. His task is to bring pain to his enemies.
The 1970s saw the abuses of the national security state generate a forceful public reaction. That turned out to be a rare moment. Instead of a pendulum swing, we have seen a ratchet effect. The national security state has acquired more weapons over the intervening decades, and the resistance to it has grown weaker. This has hit conservatives hardest, because many still imagine that our constitutional culture remains largely intact.
To the conservative mind, most Americans still believe that protecting civil liberties matters more than attacking one’s enemies. From that point of view, American politicians operate under electoral and self-imposed restraints that will impel them to take their opponents' due process rights seriously or risk being shamed and losing elections. But these restraints are now ineffectual and hardly worth mentioning.
Unlike in the 1970s, there will be no cultural resolution to the problem of lawfare. The problem will only be solved by political means: using power to punish wrongdoers, deter future abuses, and deconstruct the weaponized national security state.
When you’re presumed to be an enemy of the state, the only important question is who will fight back on your behalf.
Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at The American Mind.
Antifa burns, the media spin, and truth takes the hits
On Monday night, violence erupted at UC Berkeley. Again.
That sentence alone might not shock anyone. Berkeley and riots go together like gender studies and Marxist slogans — a tradition older than most of its students. But this time, the target was different.
Christians and conservatives should keep showing up. Every TPUSA Faith event, every lecture, every debate — attend them. The more witnesses, the less room for lies.
The mob didn’t come for a politician or a protest. It came for families.
The crowd surrounded a Turning Point USA Faith event hosted by an officially recognized student club, featuring Christian apologist Frank Turek and atheist Peter Boghossian, along with comedian Rob Schneider and British commentator and satirist Andrew Doyle. In one evening, TPUSA offered more intellectual diversity than the entire Berkeley humanities department has managed all year.
The riot that proved the stereotype
Picture families walking into a campus hall to hear a Christian and an atheist debate civilly. Now picture an angry crowd blocking the doors, throwing bottles, lighting fires, and chanting, “Punch a fascist in the face!”
Their only problem: No fascists were present. Unless, of course, you classify Turek, Boghossian, and a few Christian undergrads as Mussolini’s heirs. But that’s Berkeley logic — where “diversity” means everyone thinks the same and disagreement is treated like violence.
The radical left has no greater enemies than Christianity and free speech. Combine the two, and leftists melt down faster than a Berkeley sophomore trying to define the word “woman.”
How did we get here?
Berkeley has been the stage for riots since the 1960s. If campus unrest were Broadway, Berkeley would be “The Phantom of the Opera” — always running, always loud, always masked. But tradition doesn’t excuse terror.
The deeper problem is the culture feeding it. In today’s universities, students are marinated in ideology, not inquiry. The humanities have traded Socrates for slogans and replaced debate with denunciation.
This worldview breeds fragility and fanaticism: emotional dependence on outrage, intellectual intolerance, and the conviction that disagreement equals danger. It’s no wonder students' activism now mimics the very authoritarianism they claim to resist.
Antifa’s unofficial motto might as well be: “Accuse your opponents of what you plan to do.”
The media’s complicity
Right on cue, the Guardian rushed to describe the riot as “mostly peaceful.” That phrase should be Berkeley’s new marketing slogan: Mostly Peaceful Since 1964.
The truth is simpler. The TPUSA attendees were peaceful. The rioters were not. They screamed in people’s faces, hurled debris, blocked exits, and called it “defending democracy.” Apparently, democracy now means assaulting Christians.
The radical playbook
If you want to decode the left’s method, just reverse the leftists' accusations. They say, “Don’t demonize others,” while labeling everyone to the right of Lenin a fascist. They say, “All voices deserve to be heard,” while drowning opponents in primal screams.
They say, “Fight oppression,” while physically intimidating families trying to attend a faith event.
At Arizona State University, a colleague of mine once wrote, “I’m all for free speech — but not for bigots,” to justify banning Charlie Kirk from campus. Translation: I love freedom — as long as no one I dislike exercises it.
This is the moral logic of the modern left: Disagreement equals harm, and harm justifies censorship — or violence.
The 'radical' minority that isn’t
We keep calling these leftists radicals, but that implies rarity. Surveys say otherwise. The ideological monoculture dominates academia. The “moderate left” isn’t moderating anything; it’s supplying the radicals with silence, funding, and applause.
The tenured class that claims to value “diversity of thought” has created an institution where dissenters are treated like heretics.
RELATED: The Antifa mob at Berkeley showed us what evil looks like
What must be done
First, Christians and conservatives should keep showing up. Every TPUSA Faith event, every lecture, every debate — attend them. The more witnesses, the less room for lies.
Second, tell your state legislators you don’t want tax dollars funding violent intolerance disguised as higher learning.
Third, warn every parent and student what really happens on college campuses. Prepare your kids to challenge the ideological orthodoxy behind DEI, critical theory, and the alphabet soup of new moral dogmas.
Finally, support alternatives. Seek out institutions that teach truth instead of propaganda — and organizations like TPUSA Faith that defend free inquiry.
That’s why I started my Substack: to expose the rot inside American universities before your children discover it the hard way.
The cure for intellectual darkness is light. The cure for ideological riots is courage. And the cure for the Berkeley disease begins with showing up, speaking truth, and refusing to bow.
The Antifa mob at Berkeley showed us what evil looks like
Something in America’s atmosphere has shifted. A chill has entered public life. The temperature of our moral climate has dropped, and too many pretend not to notice.
Just days ago, outside a Turning Point USA event at the University of California, Berkeley, a mob gathered to protest, riot, shout down students, and mock the death of Charlie Kirk, chanting about his assassination as if it were a punch line.
The world does not need more outrage. It needs more heroes — ordinary people who will stand, speak, and serve even when no one applauds.
It was not a peaceful political protest — it was cruelty on display, a glimpse of how numb parts of our culture have become to basic humanity. You can feel the shift in moments like that — not in policy debates or press releases, but in the tone of the crowd, in the hard edge of its laughter.
A nation in the cold
We all learned Newton’s third law in school: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is not just a rule of motion; it speaks truth about reality itself.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Every act, every choice, demands a response. When Charlie Kirk was killed, the impact of his assassin’s bullet rippled through the soul of a nation. Millions felt it at once, as if something beneath the surface had cracked.
But out of that shock came something extraordinary. Instead of despair, there was revival. People who had not prayed in years began to whisper to God again. Vital questions rose out of grief: What is truth? What is courage? What is my purpose?
The counterforce
What we are seeing now — from Berkeley’s riots to the venom spreading online — is that pushback. It is the equal and opposite force. The lies about Charlie’s death, the hatred masquerading as justice, the growing comfort with cruelty — they are all part of something older, something that has always despised awakening.
The eternal struggle between good and evil has stepped out from behind the curtain and taken center stage. Whether we wanted it or not, we have been written into this story where both light and darkness work through human hands. That means each one of us has a role to play.
What heroism really means
Heroism is not reserved for the famous or the fearless. It is not about applause or recognition. It is the quiet resolve to do what is right when it would be easier to stay silent.
Courage starts small — the parent who refuses to surrender her values, the student who speaks truth in a hostile classroom. These small acts are the foundation of moral civilization.
Courage is a muscle. If you wait for a grand moment to use it, you will find it lacking.
Heroism is giving something of yourself — your time, your voice, your loyalty. It may go unseen, but it is never wasted. The heroes who carry civilization forward are rarely remembered by name. But they are remembered in the lives they touch and in the good they preserve.
RELATED: Why Gen Z is rebelling against leftist lies — and turning to Jesus
Standing when it matters most
We live in an age when fear is constant — fear of loss, fear of exposure, fear of being alone. But fear is not destiny. It is a test. And courage is not the absence of fear; it is acting while afraid. When you tell the truth, when you remain loyal, when you choose what is right over what is safe — that is courage.
The world does not need more outrage. It needs more heroes — ordinary people who will stand, speak, and serve even when no one applauds. This is a dark time, yes. But we should be thankful for it, because in the darkness, we discover who we are meant to be.
You do not need to change the world. You only need to change what stands before you — your home, your community. That is where real heroism lives.
When you feel fear, act anyway. That is courage. That is faith. And that is how light triumphs over darkness.
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'F**k your dead homie': Hateful leftists clash with TPUSA supporters as Charlie Kirk's planned tour ends in violence
Violence erupted outside a Turning Point USA event on the UC Berkeley campus as protesters gathered to challenge TPUSA's presence at the school on the final stop of TPUSA's tour after Charlie Kirk's assassination in September.
KTVU reported that protesters clashed on Monday with attendees outside Zellerbach Hall, where the event was scheduled to take place. Comedian Rob Schneider and Christian apologist Frank Turek headlined the event.
Other signs read: 'Kirk said death penalties should be public, quick, and televised ... Congrats Bud!' and 'TP belongs in the toilet.'
KTVU's Crystal Bailey described a "rowdy" crowd outside the venue, noting that there was heightened security as well.
The event sold out the 1,900-seat venue, a UC Berkeley TPUSA chapter representative told KTVU.
Bailey reported that the protests turned violent as protesters and attendees clashed, saying that there was "blood splattered on the ground" as the result of an "altercation."
In a now-viral video posted Monday night, leftist protesters and students could be heard chanting, "F**k your dead homie," referring to late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was publicly assassinated exactly two months ago Monday.
The crowd can be seen holding signs that read, "This machine fights fascism," "No safe space for fascists," "Karma's a b***h," and "The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of trash."
Other signs read: "Kirk said death penalties should be public, quick, and televised ... Congrats Bud!" and "TP belongs in the toilet."
A large red sign with two hammer and sickle symbols could be seen with the words "Drown Fascism in a Sea of Resistance." Underneath the slogan was an apparent reference to a group called the Revolutionary Student Organization. With a portrait of Mao Zedong on the "about" page of its website, the RSU participates in several forms of "direct action."
In other videos from the event shared by reporter Andy Ngo, activists can be seen shouting incoherently at California Highway Patrol officers and igniting smoke bombs.
TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet still claimed the event was a success. "Despite Antifa thugs blocking our campus tour stop with tear gas, fireworks, and glass bottles, we had a PACKED HOUSE in the heart of deep-blue UC Berkeley," he said, according to the New York Post.
KTVU reported that at least four students were arrested in connection with vandalism associated with the event.
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JD Vance offers calm election reflection, warns against 'idiotic' overreaction to Dem winning streak
Vice President JD Vance is cutting through the noise and reminding Republicans not to overreact to the Democrats' latest winning streak in local and state elections.
To onlookers, it might seem like Democrats have regained their footing. New York City elected its first openly socialist mayor, California is poised to redistrict the state in a manner that gives Democrats an even greater electoral advantage, and fantasizing about murdering political opponents no longer disqualifies a person from holding the highest law enforcement office in Virginia. In short, Democrats won every election they were hoping to win on November 4.
'The infighting is so stupid.'
In the wake of these electoral losses, Vance gave Republican voters a reality check.
"I think it's idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states, but a few thoughts," Vance said in a Wednesday post on X.
RELATED: Progressive wins VA race despite admitted indifference to 'sexually explicit material' in schools
Vance noted that one of Republicans' challenges is voter enthusiasm. Voter turnout has historically been difficult for local elections, even more so among Republicans. Because of this, Vance emphasized the importance of energizing the base and engaging voters in future elections.
"[Scott] Pressler, TPUSA, and a bunch of others have been working hard to register voters," Vance said. "I said it in 2022, and I've said it repeatedly since: our coalition is 'low propensity' and that means we have to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past."
Affordability was at the forefront of all successful campaigns this cycle. As Vance noted, cost of living will be a defining issue for all future elections, and it's one Republicans need to stay focused on both on the campaign trail and in office.
"We need to focus on the home front," Vance said. "The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn't built in a day."
RELATED: Zohran Mamdani becomes first openly socialist mayor of New York City
"We're going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that's the metric by which we'll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond."
Above all, Vance encouraged the MAGA movement to tune out distracting "infighting" and focus on the movement.
"The infighting is so stupid," Vance said. "I care about my fellow citizens — particularly young Americans — being able to afford a decent life, I care about immigration and sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home."
"If you care about those things too, let's work together."
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