Grassley presses FBI over Trump Arctic Frost probe name, calls change ‘anything but random’
FIRST ON FOX: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is demanding answers on the process of how the FBI determines code names for its investigations, after receiving records that show agents "renaming" the Arctic Frost investigation into President Donald Trump, with the senator calling the move "anything but random."
Grassley penned a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel raising questions on the process, after Patel’s team transmitted records the committee requested pertaining to the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe into Trump and the 2020 election.
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Documents revealed that the investigation was first named "Hyperbolic Frost," and later changed to "Arctic Frost."
"In response to our document requests, your agencies produced a document that shows that edits were made to an early version of a draft Arctic Frost opening document," Grassley wrote. "This document has several handwritten edits, including the crossing out of the initial name of the investigation, ‘Hyperbolic Frost,’" and renaming it ‘Arctic Frost.’"
Grassley said the document "calls into question the accuracy of the testimony" former FBI Director James Comey gave to him during a May 3, 2017, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
"At this hearing, I asked ‘Was the Clinton investigation named Operation Midyear because it needed to be finished before the Democratic National Convention? If so, why the artificial deadline? If not, why was that the name?" Grassley shared.
Grassley was referring to ‘Midyear Exam,’ which was the FBI’s code name for the bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Comey replied: "Certainly not because it had to be finished by a particular date."
"There’s an art and a science to how we come up with codenames for cases," Comey said at the time. "They assure me it’s done randomly. Sometimes I see ones that make me smile, so I’m not sure."
Comey added: "But I can assure you that it was called Midyear Exam, was the name of the case. I can assure you the name was not selected for any nefarious purpose or because of any timing on the investigation."
But Grassley said "the renaming of the Trump investigation from ‘Hyperbolic Frost’ to ‘Arctic Frost’ via handwritten notes is clearly anything but random."
Sources believe the investigation's title could hint at the probe's intended target: Trump.
Sources say "Arctic Frost" is also the name of a variety of orange tree. Opponents of the president have mocked him and called him an "orange man."
Grassley is asking that Bondi and Patel "produce all records relating to the naming of Operation Midyear Exam including former Director Comey’s emails."
The records produced by the FBI this week also show handwritten notes discussing the subjects of the Arctic Frost investigation.
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"Subjects of the investigation include members of Donald J. Trump for President, INC., both identified and yet to be identified," the document reads.
Beside that paragraph is a handwritten note reading: "Add DJT."
Grassley, along with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have been investigating the origins of the Arctic Frost probe since July 2022.
The senators have made whistleblower records public that they say "have exposed how partisan FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors opened, approved, and advanced the investigation against President Trump and expanded its scope to other Republican groups and individuals."
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"The recent records produced by the FBI contain even more damning evidence of the Biden administration’s unapologetic abuse of power during the Arctic Frost investigation," Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. "The American people deserve to know the full extend of Jack Smith’s massive partisan dragnet, which targeted law-abiding U.S. citizens."
He added: "Chairman Grassley and I will continue to fight to ensure that the complete truth is revealed."