A new memo sheds light on the extraordinarily long arm of the FBI as it investigated President Donald Trump — showing that the bureau gobbled up the personal data of at least 639,000 Republican donors, voters and supporters.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department obtained data including the names, dates of birth, physical addresses, email addresses, and voter registrations of thousands of everyday Americans, according to the memo released Wednesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley.
Smith wielded the country’s most powerful law enforcement tools to nab data on Trump supporters who purchased MAGA hats, including their shipping addresses.
Smith’s sweep — though ostensibly focused on the events of January 6, 2020 — captured data back to 2005.
The documents suggest that Smith sought to ensnare the information of thousands of everyday Republicans, effectively treating them like parties to a criminal conspiracy due to their party affiliation.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said he had obtained the information in the memo from whistleblower disclosures.
“This update shows that Jack Smith and the Biden Justice Department collected incredibly invasive donor data — and voter data — beyond what could conceivably be necessary for Smith or his team to fulfill the Special Counsel’s mandate. The new findings further corroborate that Smith and his partisan team aimed to map out the entire Republican Party apparatus,” Grassley said in a statement in the memo. “I again call on my Democratic colleagues to join my oversight work instead of trying to defend Smith and sweep his abuse of authority under the rug.”
The revelation further undermines Smith’s assurances in his Sept. 29 sworn testimony to Grassley’s committee that his investigation was not motivated by partisan politics. Concert-goers captured Smith at an event sponsored by a constellation of Democratic non-governmental organizations earlier this month sporting a shirt with an anti-Trump slogan, “NO KINGS.”
Grassley released the documents as part of an ongoing probe into the investigation the FBI codenamed “Arctic Frost” that formally began in April 2022 into a 2020 fake elector scheme. Arctic Frost and two other FBI investigations — one relating to Jan. 6 codenamed “Project Coconut” and one related to Mar-a-Lago documents codenamed “Project Cranberry” — mired Trump’s return to the White House and ensnared hundreds of conservative individuals and entities.
Previous releases of documents by Grassley have shown that Smith eavesdropped on the Trump White House, 16 members of Congress, dozens of media outlets and thousands of small dollar conservative donors.
Smith made repeated intrusions into the communications of members of Congress, the same branch of government tasked with providing oversight of the FBI’s secret work and reining in its excesses. Members of Congress swept up in the probe include the leaders of the committees that oversee the Department of Justice: Grassley and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, as well as other critics of FBI’s abuses such as former House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes.
Smith’s team obtained at least 4,782 checks from everyday Americans making mainly small-dollar donations.
The intrusion may still jeopardize these Americans’ privacy, as the Department of Justice and FBI continue to possess these donors’ home addresses, bank account and routing numbers and signatures.
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