Sen. Marsha Blackburn asks Bondi to release Arctic Frost ‘grand jury materials’ on Republicans’ phone records

WASHINGTON — Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked Attorney General Pam Bondi Thursday to unseal some “grand jury materials” from the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe that would reveal special counsel Jack Smith’s reasoning for seeking her and other Republicans’ personal phone records.

Smith obtained call logs for at least 10 GOP lawmakers — including Blackburn — and the Tennessee senator wrote to Bondi requesting her “to use every tool … to uncover a key component of the weaponized, Biden-era Arctic Frost investigation,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Post.

That “key component” is an application for a non-disclosure order signed by DC US District Chief Judge James Boasberg, forcing phone carriers keep secret for one year Smith’s subpoenas for the documents, which included the Republicans’ addresses, inbound/outbound call and text records, and payment information.

“It is our understanding that this application is currently under seal in the Arctic Frost grand jury materials,” Blackburn said. “We urge you to immediately unseal and provide this application that accompanied the gag order.”

Boasberg has been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s immigration policies after he issued a court order blocking deportation flights of alleged gang members to a Salvadoran mega-prison in March.

White House officials and congressional Republicans later tried to rein in the “rogue” judge from issuing nationwide injunctions hampering the president’s agenda.

In May 2023, grand jury subpoenas were sent to Verizon to obtain the phone metadata of Blackburn, Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.).

“The Special Counsel and DOJ at the time decided who to target,” a Verizon spokesman said in an earlier statement, responding to criticisms from Blackburn and others. “A court ordered Verizon not to tell anyone about that. We had no choice but to comply with the court order. So we did.”

The non-disclosure order expired May 25, 2024, but wasn’t uncovered until FBI whistleblowers revealed the information to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Verizon has since changed its policy for handling such requests and is “now actively working with members of Congress to furnish all related documents pertaining to this issue,” according to its rep.

Blackburn and others have also accused Boasberg of abusing his power by signing the non-disclosure order because it was approved under the “reasonable” assumption that evidence in Smith’s investigation might otherwise be tampered with — or destroyed.

“Astoundingly, Judge Boasberg found ‘reasonable grounds’ to conclude that, if we were notified of these unlawful subpoenas, ‘such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the [Arctic Frost] investigation,’” Blackburn informed Bondi in her letter.

“In short, without citing any factual basis to support these supposed ‘reasonable grounds,’ Judge Boasberg determined that multiple United States Senators would destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses—a conclusion that defies both logic and the facts. Plain and simple: we did nothing wrong, and there is zero evidence to conclude that we would have destroyed evidence or intimidated witnesses.”

Other Republicans, like Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), have introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg in the House after their colleagues in the Senate, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) demanded it.

Two other unidentified members of Congress also had their metadata sought in a May 2023 subpoena of AT&T — but the carrier asked questions rather than handing the records over and Smith’s team never followed up.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair claimed Thursday he was switching his provider from Verizon to AT&T as a result of his current carrier’s decision to disclose lawmakers’ phone records — and “encourage[d] every American who believes in Due Process and Fair Treatment Under the Law to do the same.”

Much of the evidence in both Arctic Frost, which then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray greenlit in April 2022, and Smith’s investigation, which started later that same year and resulted in Trump’s eventual indictment for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, has been handed over by FBI whistleblowers to Grassley.

The 92-year-old has described the declassified files as evidence of a “fishing expedition” — in the form of 197 subpoenas — by the former special counsel targeting “the entire Republican political apparatus,” including hundreds of groups and individuals such as the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.

Reps for the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.