A DOJ Veteran Just Admitted He Had Never Seen a Probe Run Like Jack Smith’s

Jack Smith's Arctic Frost investigation reached into Congress, newsrooms, and the Republican Party's donor lists.

A veteran federal investigator sat for sworn testimony about how the prosecutors actually ran the case.

What he said under oath about Jack Smith's prosecutors stunned even the lawmakers investigating him.

Grassley Found Subpoenas Reaching More Than Four Hundred Republicans and Businesses

Sen. Chuck Grassley released 197 subpoenas Jack Smith's team issued under the Arctic Frost investigation, obtained through whistleblower disclosures.

The subpoenas went to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, demanding testimony and records tied to more than 430 named Republicans and Republican-aligned entities.

Investigators demanded Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, Sinclair, and CBS turn over communications with their reporters, meaning federal prosecutors were reading through journalists' notes on a president they were simultaneously building a case against.

The subpoenas reached White House advisers Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino, Jared Kushner, and Lara Trump, along with anyone whose communications touched a member or employee of Congress.

Ordinary people who did nothing more than write a check to a Republican campaign had their donor records swept into the same dragnet built to take down a president.

Grassley did not mince words, calling the operation a blatant fishing expedition.

He said Arctic Frost became the vehicle through which "partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus."

He added that Democrats would be just as outraged if the same thing had happened to them.

A Congressman's Phone Was Seized While He Was On Vacation

House Judiciary Committee transcripts released under Chairman Jim Jordan show Rep. Scott Perry's phone was seized using a location warrant while he was on vacation in New Jersey.

Investigators imaged the phone and returned it.

Prosecutor Tad Duree testified the warrant targeted Perry because of his closeness to President Trump and his role connecting Trump to Jeffrey Clark.

Rep. Chip Roy never got the chance to fight back in court, because prosecutors obtained a nondisclosure order barring his phone carrier from ever telling him his toll records had been pulled.

Duree would not concede that seizing a sitting lawmaker's phone records violated the Speech or Debate Clause, though he admitted there was a "lack of clarity on certain points" in the law.

Even Chairman Jordan's phone records were in the crosshairs.

The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section approved that step in April 2022, while a retired DOJ inspector general agent testified he served the Verizon subpoena without even knowing whose number it was.

Thirty Years On the Job and He Had Never Seen Prosecutors Run It This Way

That same retired agent, Brian Burnett, described a probe where prosecutors, not the agents working the case, directed moves that are normally left to the people on the ground.

Asked if he had ever seen that before, Burnett answered: "Not in my entire 30 years of law enforcement."

A career Justice Department investigator just told Congress, under oath, that the Trump probe broke the normal chain of command he had followed for three decades.

That single admission cuts through every defense Smith's team has offered since the investigation became public.

Washington has run weaponized investigations before, but even veterans of past special counsel fights have rarely heard a career agent call a sitting prosecutor's conduct unprecedented in open testimony.

Smith and the Justice Department have not responded to the specific claims in Burnett's testimony.

Grassley's committee has already signaled more Arctic Frost hearings are coming, and each one keeps peeling back a probe that started by chasing Donald Trump and ended up swallowing lawmakers, reporters, and ordinary Republican donors along the way.

Sources:

• RedState Video, "Jack Smith Under Fire As Bombshell New Trump Probe Records Surface," RedState, September 29, 2026.
• Senate Judiciary Committee, "New Jack Smith Subpoenaed Records for Over 400 Republican Targets as Part of Arctic Frost," U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 2025.
• Stepheny Price, Leo Briceno, and Charles Creitz, "House Republicans Drop Jack Smith Transcripts in Explosive Arctic Frost Records Fight," Fox News, September 22, 2026.