Grassley: Biden DOJ and Jack Smith Obtained Data on More Than 639,000 Republican Donors and Supporters in Arctic Frost Probe

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed Wednesday that the Biden Justice Department and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office obtained detailed personal and donor information on more than 639,000 individuals during the Arctic Frost investigation.

The spreadsheets contained names, dates of birth, physical addresses covering most states and U.S. territories (including every Judiciary Committee member’s home state), email addresses, party affiliation, congressional and state legislative districts, occupations and places of employment, donation amounts, credit card information (including last four digits), and donor analysis such as one-time versus recurring gifts.

More than 148,000 rows were identified as donors. The contributions were generally small-dollar amounts, some as low as $1 and typically under $1,000. Sample occupations listed included retired, pool tech, driver, logger, safety manager, janitor, and doorman.

The data spanned from 2005 to 2021. Grassley said that range fell “well outside Smith’s scope of purported review,” which centered on allegations that President Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Grassley wrote that the findings further corroborate that “the Special Counsel operation was designed to map out the Republican Party.”

“Jack Smith’s SCO and Biden’s Justice Department obtained spreadsheets containing Republican campaign donors, supporters, and detailed personal voter information in various formats, totaling over 639,000 individuals, at minimum,” Grassley stated in a memo to committee members. The records came to his office through lawful whistleblower disclosures and in response to his subpoenas for information on Smith’s efforts involving Trump-aligned groups.

The update builds on Grassley’s September disclosure that Smith’s team collected checks from nearly 5,000 Americans in all 50 states who donated to Trump or Trump-aligned entities, including 42 from Iowa. Those checks included bank account and routing numbers, home addresses, and signatures.

During Smith’s September 29 testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Grassley asked whether the Special Counsel operation obtained donor data including financial information. Smith answered, “Yes, we acquired financial information,” adding that subpoenas were issued “to conduct a criminal investigation.”

Grassley said the collection went beyond what was conceivably necessary for the Special Counsel’s mandate and aimed to map the Republican Party apparatus. The Biden Justice Department and Smith’s office also obtained names of Trump campaign personnel, possibly including volunteers, and information on sales of red MAGA hats, including individual buyers, purchase details, and shipping addresses.

Grassley has previously released records showing Arctic Frost subpoenas targeting Republican-aligned groups, phone toll records of members of Congress, and other materials. The Arctic Frost investigation began at the FBI before Smith was appointed Special Counsel.