Category: Fbi
A Former Agent Makes A Case For Reform At The FBI
With The Two FBIs: The Bravery and Betrayal I Saw in My Time at the Bureau, Nicole Parker has written a personal memoir with some important political lessons.
Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost surveillance of lawmakers could cost the government, thanks to ‘real teeth’ measure in funding bill
Republican lawmakers officially passed their funding bill to reopen the government on Monday night. In addition to getting the ball rolling on reopening the government, their bill sets the stage for possible retribution over the Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost operation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents last month regarding the Biden FBI’s Operation Arctic Frost, an investigation that ultimately morphed into former special counsel Jack Smith’s federal case against President Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election.
‘Arctic Frost was a grotesque abuse of power. It was Joe Biden’s Watergate.’
The documents revealed that the bureau not only subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities but secretly obtained the private phone records of numerous Republican lawmakers as part of what the Iowa senator called a “fishing expedition.”
According to the Grassley, those behind Arctic Frost “were spreading a wide net because they were looking for anything they could to hook on Trump, put Trump in prison, keep him from running for president, and things of that nature.”
The funding bill passed by the Senate this week contains a provision that would enable any senator whose phone records were “acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed or disclosed” without his or her knowledge to file a civil lawsuit against the government inside the next five years for at least $500,000 plus legal fees for each instance of a violation.
Senators would be able to take legal action if at the time their records were seized, they were a target of a criminal investigation; a federal judge issued an order authorizing a delay of notice to the senator in question; the government complied with the judge’s order; and the subpoena was faithfully executed.
RELATED: Republicans torch Obama judge over his role in Biden FBI’s ‘partisan vendetta,’ demand impeachment
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The provision, which is retroactive to 2022, notes that “no officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any Federal department or agency shall be entitled to assert any form of absolute or qualified immunity as a defense to liability” in relation to such violations.
“It’s designed to put real teeth into federal law that prohibits the executive branch from surveilling the Senate,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — whose Senate office hard-line and cellphone records were reportedly targeted — told the Daily Caller. “Arctic Frost was a grotesque abuse of power. It was Joe Biden’s Watergate.”
“[It’s] a common-sense provision to ensure that no Department of Justice — Democrat or Republican — ever does that again,” added Cruz, who confirmed to Politico that Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) was “directly” responsible for the inclusion of the provision.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told the Daily Caller the provision serves to protect against “a weaponization of government against members of the Senate” and stressed that “senators are going to take responsible action, and that’s what we’ve done here.”
Democrat lawmakers complained about the measure.
“I’m shocked that a huge change in policy would be dropped into a bill at the last minute, and the first that most senators learn about it is in the press,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the Caller. “This is one more way in which the bill that passed the Senate tonight is even worse for the American people.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) similarly clutched pearls over the provision, telling Politico, “I am furious that the Senate minority and majority leaders chose to airdrop this provision into this bill at the eleventh hour — with zero consultation or negotiation with the subcommittee that actually oversees this work.”
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‘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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2 suspects flee ‘intentional’ 3 a.m. explosion at Harvard Med School
Law enforcement is investigating an explosion at Harvard University medical school building that appeared to be “intentional,” according to multiple reports.
A police officer responded at 2:48 a.m. on Saturday after a fire alarm was activated in the Goldenson building.
The officer reported seeing two people fleeing the scene before locating a fire on the building’s fourth floor where there appeared to be an “intentional” explosion. The officer tried to approach and the pair before entering the building.
RELATED: ‘Jihadi’ terror attack planned for Halloween weekend leads to multiple arrests, FBI says
Photo by Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
No injuries were reported and the Boston police swept the building for “any additional devices” but found none.
The FBI also confirmed that they are assisting local law enforcement with the investigation.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Judicial Watch: FBI Met with Twitter Officials Days Before 2022 Election to Discuss Twitter ‘Content Moderation Policies’
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it received a heavily redacted email from the U.S. Department of Justice in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit which shows Biden-era FBI personnel discussing a “touch point meeting” with Twitter regarding reported meddling by China in the 2022 midterm election and the social media platform’s “potential […]
The post Judicial Watch: FBI Met with Twitter Officials Days Before 2022 Election to Discuss Twitter ‘Content Moderation Policies’ appeared first on Judicial Watch.
Biden’s FBI Met with Twitter Days Before 2022 Election
Biden’s FBI Met with Twitter Days Before 2022 Election to Discuss ‘Content Moderation’ Hearing in Lawsuit for Release of ‘Manifesto’ in Nashville School Shooting Biden FEMA Systemically Withheld Disaster Aid to Conservative Victims Biden’s FBI Met with Twitter Days Before 2022 Election to Discuss ‘Content Moderation’ We received a smoking-gun email showing that the Biden […]
The post Biden’s FBI Met with Twitter Days Before 2022 Election appeared first on Judicial Watch.
The game was fixed long before the bets were legal
The integrity of sports is in trouble again, or so the headlines say. The FBI last week arrested more than 30 people in a wide-ranging gambling probe that ensnared Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.
A former Cleveland Cavaliers player, Damon Jones, was also charged in two separate cases — one involving sports betting improprieties, the other tied to Billups’ alleged participation in an illegal poker ring linked to the mafia.
Cheating is illegal. Addiction is tragic. But gambling itself isn’t a sin against the republic.
Given the timing — amid public debate over legalized sports wagering since 2018 — the FBI’s sweep might look like vindication for critics of betting. It isn’t.
Millionaires behaving badly
When federal agents arrest millionaire athletes and coaches for gambling crimes, it raises an obvious question: Is legalized sports betting really to blame?
Rozier’s salary cap for the 2025-26 season is $26.6 million. His career earnings total more than $160 million. Billups made $4.7 million during the 2024-25 NBA season. Disgraced Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, 25, had earned $2.7 million before his ban for sharing medical information to steer bets.
When people earn sums that most Americans can’t even imagine, they often invent new ways to ruin themselves. The average NBA salary in 1991 was $800,000; today it’s more than $8 million. As David Cone of Crain and Company observed, “Even if you’re just on a roster, you make more than doctors make. There’s no excuse.”
There really isn’t. This scandal is less about gambling and more about human nature — about greed, self-destruction, and the moral rot that wealth alone can’t fix. The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize small wagers didn’t make multimillionaires betray their sport for a few illegal dollars. They did that on their own.
The moral lesson that hasn’t changed
When infielder Fred McMullin went down in the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, he earned $3,500 a year — roughly $67,000 in today’s money. Those players were underpaid and easily tempted. No one can say that about professional athletes or coaches today.
Legalized betting didn’t create this corruption, and FBI Director Kash Patel said as much during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.
Critics overplay their hand
A video clip from ESPN’s “Get Up” made the rounds this week after producers hastily removed an on-screen ad for ESPN Bet during coverage of the scandal. The network’s discomfort spurred an online feeding frenzy from the right’s new morality police, who pounced on the moment as proof of hypocrisy.
Saagar Enjeti circled the ad and captioned it, “Spot the problem.” But the real problem isn’t the ad; it’s addiction and bad character. Billups apparently got hooked on poker. Rozier and Jones broke the law and got caught in an era when every transaction and text leaves a trail.
Enjeti calls this “uncontrolled.” Tell that to the players facing federal indictments. Gambling today is more visible, traceable, and regulated than ever before. The temptation hasn’t changed — the surveillance has.
RELATED: The myth of the online gambling ‘epidemic’
Hirurg via iStock/Getty Images
Americans were always betting
Critics say the explosion of legal sportsbooks has opened new avenues for corruption. Maybe. But it has also pulled a massive shadow economy into the light. Americans didn’t wait for the Supreme Court’s permission to wager; by 2015, they were already betting an estimated $150 billion a year on illegal offshore sites.
Yes, the sector’s growth has been explosive. And yes, it’s unsettling to see leagues, networks, and sportsbooks growing so intertwined. But that doesn’t make moral crusaders the saviors of integrity.
The real vice
Take Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who reportedly won $1.4 million playing blackjack in Las Vegas last year — less than 1% of his net worth. Critics didn’t call that a moral crisis.
The point is simple: People should be free to spend their discretionary income as they choose. Cheating is illegal. Addiction is tragic. But gambling itself isn’t a sin against the republic.
The latest pro sports scandal offers a moral lesson, but not the one the prohibitionists want to hear. Legalized betting didn’t corrupt sports — people did. And no law can outlaw greed.
Republicans torch Obama judge over his role in Biden FBI’s ‘partisan vendetta,’ demand impeachment
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans are seeking the impeachment of U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, the Obama appointee who apparently helped the Biden FBI spy on Republican lawmakers’ phone records.
During a press conference on Wednesday regarding the latest insights into the FBI’s Arctic Frost operation, Cruz called on the House to impeach Boasberg, stating, “Judge Boasberg put his robes down, stood up, and said, ‘Sign me up to be part of the partisan vendetta against 20% of the Republicans in the Senate.'”
‘This order is an abuse of power.’
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) underscored that what Boasberg “did to Senator Cruz and maybe other senators absolutely — and I don’t say this lightly — absolutely is worthy of impeachment proceedings. There has to be accountability.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published documents earlier this month detailing how the Biden FBI sought private cellphone records from at least nine Republican lawmakers during Arctic Frost — an operation that set the stage for at least one case brought against President Donald Trump by former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s special counsel, Jack Smith, whose appointment was ruled unconstitutional.
Grassley released additional documents this week showing that Smith and his team subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities as part of what the Iowa senator called a “fishing expedition.”
Cruz — whose Senate office hardline and cellphone records were reportedly targeted — suggested on Wednesday that the indiscriminate targeting of conservatives was “egregious” and that the secret subpoenaing of lawmakers’ communication records was executed “in complete contravention of the Constitution, of separation of powers, of the Speech and Debate Clause, of free speech, of basic rights and property.”
The Texas senator produced a court order apparently indicating that Boasberg barred AT&T from informing Cruz that his phone data was being collected by the Biden administration. The prohibition was to remain in effect for at least one year.
RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who’s on Biden admin’s ‘enemies list,’ expose extent of FBI’s Arctic Frost
Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The order reportedly stated as cause that “the court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation.”
“I can tell you there is precisely zero evidence to conclude that I am likely to destroy or tamper with evidence or to intimidate potential witnesses. Zero evidentiary basis for that,” stressed Cruz. “This order is an abuse of power. This order is a weaponized legal system.”
‘Boasberg is that radical leftist judge who is out of control.’
Cruz admitted that he had not yet seen the subpoenas for the other senators but speculated “Judge Boasberg printed these things out like the placemats at Denny’s, one after the other.”
The Texas senator noted that if a litigant makes a claim for which there is no factual basis, “that litigant is subject to sanctions in federal court — and if a judge signs an order reaching a factual conclusion for which there is zero evidence whatsoever, that judge is abusing his power.”
Blaze News has reached out to Boasberg for comment.
‘Who is Boasberg?’
“Now who is Boasberg? Boasberg is that radical leftist judge who is out of control, who has been issuing nationwide injunctions, one after the other, trying to stop President Trump from carrying out his mandate from the voters,” said Cruz.
Boasberg has worked ardently in recent years to earn the label “radical leftist.” For instance, he:
- ordered in August the release of a woman accused of repeatedly threatening Trump’s life;
- temporarily blocked summary deportations of apparent Tren de Aragua terrorists by the Trump administration under the Alien Enemies Act;
- tried unsuccessfully to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for deporting illegal aliens to El Salvador;
- kept Kevin Clinesmith — the former FBI attorney who, according to the DOJ, fabricated evidence to support a surveillance application to the same FISA court, lying about Carter Page’s past cooperation with the CIA — out of jail; and
- mandated a right to Medicaid for able-bodied adults without work requirements.
The demands that Boasberg face accountability for his involvement with the FBI’s Arctic Frost “fishing expedition” come just months after Attorney General Pam Bondi slapped him with a misconduct complaint for allegedly “making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.”
This is also not the first time that Republicans have called for his impeachment.
After ordering the Trump administration not to deport suspected members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization, President Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, suggesting in a March 18 post on Truth Social that Boasberg was a “radical Left Lunatic of a Judge.”
That same day, Republican Rep. Brandon Gill (Texas) introduced articles of impeachment accusing Boasberg of attempting to seize power from the executive branch, thereby interfering with the will of the American people; jeopardizing the safety of the nation; and engaging in actions that prioritize political gain over the duty of impartiality owed the litigants in the case.
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Trump Task Force Catches 3,000 Cartel and Gang Members, 1,000 Guns, 91 Tons of Drugs in Weeks
A Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) established by President Trump on the day of his inauguration to tackle a pandemic of transnational organized crime created by the Biden administration’s “disgraceful” open border policies has made thousands of arrests in recent weeks and seized over 1,000 illegal firearms, 91 tons of drugs and $3 million in […]
The post Trump Task Force Catches 3,000 Cartel and Gang Members, 1,000 Guns, 91 Tons of Drugs in Weeks appeared first on Judicial Watch.
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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