President Trump late Friday pushed for several Biden-era Justice Department officials to be prosecuted over an FBI investigation into the fallout of the 2020 election.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump accused four high-ranking officials — former Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, special counsel Jack Smith and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco — of signing off on an FBI probe in which investigators allegedly looked at nine Republican lawmakers’ phone records.
“These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!” the president wrote. He did not specify what crimes he believes they committed.
The message marks the latest instance of Mr. Trump urging the prosecution of his political foes. Last month, he pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. Since then, Comey and James have been criminally indicted.
The GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee revealed earlier this month that the FBI obtained phone data for about eight GOP senators and one GOP representative in 2023 as part of Arctic Frost, an investigation into Mr. Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the judiciary panel, released documents that appeared to indicate Wray, Garland and Monaco approved the opening of the Arctic Frost probe in the spring of 2022. Later that year, Garland appointed Smith to independently oversee the criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.
In Friday’s post, Mr. Trump alleged the four former officials “spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls” — though the Judiciary Committee said in a statement earlier this month the records obtained by the FBI didn’t include the content of calls. Instead, the data covered who the lawmakers called and when, and the length of their calls.
The president also claimed — without evidence — they “cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election.”
CBS News has reached out to representatives for Smith, Garland and Monaco for comment.
Grassley excoriated the FBI over its handling of Arctic Frost earlier this month, calling the revelations about lawmakers’ phone records “disturbing and outrageous” and part of a pattern of “weaponization” that was “arguably worse than Watergate.”
Smith’s attorneys called his actions “entirely lawful, proper and consistent with established Department of Justice policy” in a letter to Grassley earlier this week.
The phone records that were scrutinized by the FBI covered several days both before and after Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump pressed lawmakers to vote against certifying former President Joe Biden’s election win. The gambit was unsuccessful as Congress ended up voting to certify, but the process was interrupted by rioting at the Capitol.
Mr. Trump was charged by Smith’s team in August 2023 for conspiring to overturn the results, but the case was abandoned after Mr. Trump’s win the following year because of a Justice Department legal opinion that states sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
Smith’s investigation delved into phone calls between lawmakers and the president on the evening of Jan. 6, which Smith alleged were part of a last-ditch attempt to talk congressional Republicans into blocking Biden’s victory. The 2023 indictment against Mr. Trump lists several attempts by him and his alleged co-conspirators to reach lawmakers by phone. It argued the president “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them, based on knowingly false claims of election fraud, to delay the certification.”
Last year, a final report penned by Smith also pointed to phone calls placed by Mr. Trump and members of his circle. It cited toll records from two unindicted co-conspirators who are unnamed, one of them widely believed to be Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Trump has lashed out at the federal officials who investigated him in the past.
His legal team has asked the Justice Department to pay him about $230 million to settle federal damage claims over two investigations into him, CBS News confirmed this week. Those claims focus on the Trump-Russia probe from his first term and the criminal case against Mr. Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, which was pursued by Smith.
And a federal watchdog office launched an investigation into Smith for alleged illegal political activity earlier this year. Smith’s attorneys called the claims “imaginary and unfounded.”
