ALTERNATIVE FACTS

Trump Lines Up Next Targets With Wildly Inaccurate Claims

The president has three former Biden administration officials in his sights.

President Donald Trump has set his sights on several Biden administration officials, accusing them of rigging the 2020 election that took place while Trump was still in office.

In a late Friday night Truth Social post, the president wrote, “Just in: Documents show conclusively that Christopher Wray, Deranged Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, and other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration, signed off on Operation Arctic Frost.“

“They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls,” the president continued. “They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election. These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!”

While former FBI director Christopher Wray was in office at the time of the 2020 election, former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco did not take office until after President Joe Biden was sworn in in 2021.

In addition, Jack Smith was not appointed to the role of Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice until November 2022. At the time of the 2020 presidential election that saw Trump lose to Biden, Trump was in power, and William Barr was attorney general.

As Politico reporter Kyle Cheney pointed out, Trump’s claims would mean that Garland, Monaco and Smith “managed to ‘tape’ lawmakers’ calls before the Biden administration began.”

Cheney also noted that Smith did not sign off on Operation Arctic Frost—where the FBI collected “toll analysis” from several Republican lawmakers’ cellphones—as he was still working in Europe at the time.

The documents Trump referred to in his post were made public by Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday, with the 92-year-old lawmaker sharing screenshots of an unclassified document on X.

“Just received this doc from DOJ Proof that Biden Atty General Merrick Garland+ Deputy Atty General Lisa Monaco+ FBI Dir Chris Wray all PERSONALLY APPROVED opening Arctic Frost. This investigation unleashed unchecked govt power at the highest levels. My oversight will continue,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley oversees the Senate Judiciary Committee charged with investigating Operation Arctic Frost. Earlier this month, the committee revealed that the FBI had analyzed the phone records of several Republican lawmakers as part of its probe into Jan. 6.

The document posted by Grassley details a request to open an investigation into whether people connected to the Trump campaign conspired to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the Electoral College on Jan. 6, 2021. The request was approved by Wray, Garland and Monaco.

Grassley has condemned the phone probe as “disturbing and outrageous” and part of a pattern of “weaponization” that was “arguably worse than Watergate.”

In a letter to Grassley earlier this week, Smith’s attorneys called his actions “entirely lawful, proper and consistent with established Department of Justice policy.”

While Republicans have claimed Operation Arctic Frost involved wiretapping, a law professor explained to PBS that “what was sought was basically a record of phone numbers dialed from a specific phone number.”

In August, Trump loyalist Sen. Tom Cotton prompted the Office of Special Counsel to investigate Smith over alleged violations of the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal officials. In 2024, Trump called for Smith to be “thrown out of the country.”

Trump has also previously gone after Monaco, who was appointed Microsoft’s president of global affairs in May, writing on Truth Social, “Monaco’s having that kind of access is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand... It is my opinion that Microsoft should immediately terminate the employment of Lisa Monaco.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Catherine BourisReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.