Then-Special Counsel Jack Smiths team authorized a $20,000 payment to a confidential human source in 2023 for information used in the FBIs Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump and his allies efforts to challenge the 2020 election results, newly released documents show.
The payment, disclosed in internal FBI memoranda, sheds fresh light on the aggressive tactics federal agents and prosecutors deployed as they sought to construct a criminal case around Trump-worlds push for alternate electors and objections to certification of Joe Bidens victory.
According to Just The News, the memos were turned over to Congress this week by FBI Director Kash Patel, offering lawmakers a more detailed look at how the government pursued a sitting presidents political movement over what many conservatives still regard as legitimate constitutional and legal challenges to a disputed election.
The documents describe repeated attempts by FBI supervisors to formally designate Trump as a subject of the probe, a move that was ultimately rejected but underscores how close the bureau came to directly targeting a former president over his political strategy.
They also reveal a heavy reliance on liberal media reporting to buttress investigative theories, along with an expansive sweep of phone and email data from a broad array of Trump associates, raising serious questions about overreach, politicization, and respect for civil liberties.
Among the most striking disclosures is that the FBI obtained email records from nearly 150 individuals in Trumps orbit, a vast digital dragnet that extended far beyond any narrow criminal predicate.
Agents also analyzed phone data not only from nine Trump-aligned members of Congress but from his attorneys and outside advisers, including prominent conservative commentator Steve Bannon, blurring the line between legitimate law enforcement and political surveillance.
Bannons name appeared on a list of at least 16 Trump associates whose long-distance call records were scrutinized for potential evidence, a roster that also included former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and personal lawyers Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell.
The late former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who led a team investigating alleged irregularities in the 2020 election, was likewise swept into the inquiry, illustrating how the probe reached into the ranks of those actively questioning the integrity of the vote.
One memo further revealed that, beyond the personal cell phones of Trump and thenVice President Mike Pencedevices previously reported as seizedthe FBI examined calls from more than 50 White House-issued cell phones.
Such a broad review of executive-branch communications, touching scores of senior officials and staff, underscores the unprecedented nature of the Arctic Frost operation and its potential implications for executive privilege and separation of powers.
Yet the most explosive detail in the latest tranche of documents is the confirmation that the FBI was running an informant whose compensation was personally cleared by Smiths office.
An electronic communication documents prosecutorial approval, in the form of emailed concurrence from Counselor to the Special Counsel Raymond Hulser on 06/02/2023, of a payment for information in the amount of $20,000.00 to [name redacted] for information provided in support of captioned investigation, one memo reads.
The payment was discussed by Raymond Hulser and Assistant Special Counsel Julia Gegenheimer with Special Counsel Jack Smith, the memo added, explicitly tying the decision to the top of the special counsels hierarchy.
The memos trace the approval chain, with an FBI agent writing Smiths office on June 2, 2023: As discussed, request your office's concurrence in our proposed payment of $20,000 for CHS' provision of information in support of the investigation.
Hulsers response was terse and unequivocal, as he wrote back, Concur, thank you. The existence of this paid confidential human source, long rumored in conservative circles, is likely to intensify speculation about whether the informant was a Trump insider and how deeply they penetrated the former presidents political and legal strategy.
Even the redacted versions suggest a level of internal intrigue that would be unthinkable had the target been a Democratic administration or progressive movement. There have long been rumors of an informant the FBI used to build the Arctic Frost case, and the new memos are certain to spur a new wave of intrigue as to the person's identity and whether they were a Trump insider.
Arctic Frost has already drawn fierce criticism because it relied on an order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that allowed Smiths office, as part of the executive branch, to obtain the phone records of eight U.S. senators and one congressman, sweeping up data from hundreds of conservative figures and organizations.
Such a warrant, aimed at lawmakers engaged in constitutionally protected legislative activity, raises profound concerns about the weaponization of law enforcement against political opponents and the erosion of the checks and balances that are supposed to restrain federal power.
At least two Republican senatorsLindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennesseehave vowed to sue the Justice Department for breaching their congressional privilege and privacy, protections rooted in the separation of powers clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Other GOP lawmakers have warned that the Arctic Frost probe vacuumed up vast amounts of information with little apparent regard for the Fourth Amendment, looking less like a targeted criminal investigation and more like a fishing expedition aimed at intimidating and chilling conservative dissent over the 2020 election.
Login