Days before the Senate is set to delve into the Justice Department’s potentially politicized conduct during the Biden administration, two ousted FBI agents involved in the “Arctic Frost” operation sued the Trump administration.
The two special agents, identified in the lawsuit as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, worked from November 2022 to June 2023 on an investigation of Donald Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election. The probe obtained phone records and other data on members of Congress, raising separation of powers questions.
The plaintiffs claim that FBI Director Kash Patel fired them after members of Congress released Arctic Frost records last year. Both termination letters cited “poor judgment and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties,” a claim their complaint argued was “pretextual.” They filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The fired agents assert their First Amendment rights were violated because they were fired for a perceived political affiliation, and that their Fifth Amendment rights were violated because they were fired without due process.
Republican lawmakers challenged the “Arctic Frost” investigation as one of several areas of perceived weaponization of the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden.
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights is holding a hearing titled “Arctic Frost: A Modern Watergate.” The hearing will draw parallels between the two, since both Arctic Frost and the Watergate scandal involved government snooping against political opponents.
The committee last year released a set of documents that show the special counsel Jack Smith’s team collected cellphone data from nine Republican senators and one Republican House member in the investigation, dubbed “Arctic Frost.”
The committee also released 197 subpoenas that Smith’s investigative team issued in 2023 as part of its case against Trump, which also seemed to encompass numerous people and organizations in Trump’s orbit, many only loosely connected to the 2020 election dispute.
The lawsuit by the two FBI agents makes their case in part by diminishing their own roles in the investigation, saying, “John Doe 1’s contributions to Arctic Frost were largely administrative and ministerial.” Similarly, John Doe 2 claims to have “played a supporting role, handling tasks such as recording interviews when requested by lead agents or prosecutors, arranging for transcription services for recorded interviews, and keeping track of interview logs and records.”
The lawsuit even claims that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro of the District of Columbia made a failed effort to save John Doe 2’s job.
“No internal investigation, notice, or hearing preceded their firings,” the complaint states. “Nor were Plaintiffs presented with any evidence purportedly supporting their firings or given an opportunity to appeal.”
