Late Friday, President Trump demanded that several Biden-era Justice Department officials be prosecuted in connection with the FBI's investigation into the fallout from the 2020 election.
IN Truth Social Trump then accused four senior officials – former Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, special counsel Jack Smith and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco – of signing off on an FBI investigation in which investigators allegedly reviewed phone records of nine Republican lawmakers.
“These radical leftist lunatics must be held accountable for their illegal and grossly unethical behavior!” the president wrote. He did not specify what crimes he believed they had committed.
The message marks the latest time Mr. Trump has called for the prosecution of people he has described as political opponents. Last month he pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi is investigating former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. Comey and James have since faced criminal charges.
GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee revealed earlier this month that the FBI obtained the phone data of approximately eight GOP senators and one GOP representative in 2023 as part of Arctic frostan investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary panel, issued documents This appears to indicate that Ray, Garland and Monaco have approved the start of the Arctic freeze investigation in the spring of 2022. Later that year, Garland appointed Smith as independent overseer of criminal investigations into Trump.
In a tweet Friday, Mr. Trump said the four former officials “spyed on senators and congressmen/women and even recorded their conversations,” although the Judiciary Committee said in a statement earlier this month. the records obtained by the FBI did not include the contents of the calls. Instead, the data focused on who lawmakers called and when, as well as the length of their calls.
The president also claimed – without evidence – that they “fraudled and rigged the 2020 presidential election.”
CBS News has reached out to reps for Smith, Garland and Monaco for comment.
Grassley criticized the FBI for its handling of the Arctic freeze earlier this month, calling revelations about lawmakers' phone records “disturbing and outrageous” and part of a “weaponization” scheme that is “perhaps worse than Watergate.”
Smith's lawyers named his actions “entirely legal, correct, and consistent with established Department of Justice policy,” in a letter to Grassley earlier this week.
The phone records, which were scrutinized by the FBI, covered several days both before and after Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump pressed lawmakers to vote against certifying former President Joe Biden's election victory. The gambit was unsuccessful as Congress ultimately voted to confirm, but the process was interrupted by the riot at the Capitol.
Mr Trump was accused by Smith's team in August 2023 for conspiracy to overturn the results, but the case was dropped after Trump's victory the following year due to a Justice Department legal finding that sitting state presidents could not be subject to federal prosecution.
Smith's investigation delved into phone calls between lawmakers and the president on the evening of Jan. 6 that Smith said were part of a last-ditch effort to persuade congressional Republicans to block Biden's victory. 2023 indictment against Trump lists several attempts him and his alleged accomplices to contact lawmakers by phone. It alleges that the president “attempted to take advantage of the violence and chaos at the Capitol by urging lawmakers to persuade them, based on patently false claims of election fraud, to delay certification.”
Smith also wrote the final report last year. pointed to phone calls posted by Mr. Trump and members of his circle. He cited toll records from two unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators, one of whom was widely believed to be Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Trump has criticized federal officials who have investigated him in the past.
His legal team contacted the Ministry of Justice to pay him about $230 million to settle federal damages claims stemming from two investigations into him, CBS News confirmed this week. The claims center on the investigation into Trump's dealings with Russia during his first term and the criminal case against Trump for mishandling classified documents brought by Smith.
And the federal supervisory authority started an investigation in Smith for alleged illegal political activity earlier this year. Smith's lawyers named the claims “imaginary and unfounded.”
