The Biden Justice Department’s data collection on political opponents was more expansive than initially thought, according to documents released Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s chairman, on Tuesday published documents revealing “Operation Rampart Twelve,” a Biden-era investigation that targeted Republican members of Congress, including Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. The investigation was related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
The records show the FBI secretly obtained members’ phone toll records as part of the investigation. Further, text messages from Justice Department prosecutors expressed concerns about the legal requirements for gathering such data.
This is similar to the well-known “Operation Arctic Frost,” in which the FBI scooped up the phone data of Republican members of Congress as part of a probe into President Donald Trump’s challenge to the outcome of the 2020 election.
“Rampart Twelve appears to be a predecessor case to Arctic Frost,” Grassley said Tuesday during a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The FBI opened Operation Rampart Twelve on Jan. 22, 2021, but closed it one year later after failing to uncover credible evidence to support the case.
Grassley also said that records revealed the Biden White House coordinated with the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis during her investigation into Trump, which led to state conspiracy charges against Trump and political allies.
The probe sought to find out whether GOP House members “led reconnaissance tours in advance of Jan. 6,” Grassley said. It gathered data on GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama.
“But what you’ll find in the available records is that the evidence to support the investigation didn’t exist,” Grassley said.
In post on X, Gosar said, “Biden’s FBI didn’t make a mistake, they knowingly pushed baseless claims to justify a partisan hit job targeting GOP members of Congress.”
Gosar later noted that text messages between “two partisan prosecutors who later joined Jack Smith’s team”—referring to the former special counsel who investigated Trump—expressed concerns about gathering the data. However, the FBI proceeded anyway.