Jack Smith, the former special counsel for the FBI, met Christopher Wray in the months following the launch of his expansive and open-ended probe into President Donald Trump’s legal challenges against the results of the presidential elections held on January 6, 2020.
This revelation came in a recently disclosed FBI document that was released to Senator Ron Johnson and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley. The two senators are looking through the documents related to Smith’s “Arctic Frost”, which was a seemingly endless investigation that targeted conservative thinkers, groups and politicians.
Fox News said that the information was part of “a significant case notification”, drafted on May 25,2023 by FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. The document states that “On May 24, 2023, Jack Smith and FBI Director Wray met.”
This meeting was held just one day before Criminal Investigative Division of the Bureau drafted the document “significant case notifications”.
These documents are FBI internal records that the FBI uses to inform senior management and regional field office heads about high-profile cases. The FBI sent this notification to provide an update regarding the Arctic Frost investigation, which the Bureau classified as “sensitive investigations”.
“Jack Smith says he’s going to share his story with Congress. But when I asked him directly if he had ever met Garland, Monaco or Wray in the course of his investigation, he wouldn’t answer,” Grassley said to Fox News.
These revelations are significant, since Grassley asked Smith specifically last month if he had met Wray, the then Attorney General Merrick G. Garland, Lisa Monaco, who was then Deputy Attorney General, or Paul Abbate, when he worked as FBI Deputy Director. Smith responded to Grassley, but he did not provide details about meetings with Wray and the others.
Grassley said that Smith either has a poor memory or he is unwilling to be honest about his actions. He added that if Smith wanted to tell the American public the truth he would have cooperated with the congressional oversight requests I made instead of making excuses.
The senior GOP legislator added, “I will continue to investigate to ensure that the public receives full transparency.”
Smith asked for the right to speak in public, open hearings at the House and Senate Judiciary Committees last month. Smith, whose investigation was based on President Trump’s alleged mishandling classified documents as well as his role in trying to reverse the election results in 2020 has been mischaracterized. Smith requests to be able to testify at open hearings in front of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
The documents released previously by investigators in Congress revealed that Arctic Frost had been personally approved by senior Biden officials including the former Attorney General Merrick Wray and former FBI director Christopher Wray.
In a March press release, the committee stated that the investigation was launched by anti Trump FBI agent Timothy Thibault as a violation of FBI protocol. This formed the foundation of Jack Smith’s elector charge against Trump. Thibault promised that the investigation would “prioritize over all other Branch investigations” when he opened it. He also commented, “it took us too long to open the [investigation].
Arctic Frost spread beyond Washington, targeting prominent conservative groups and individuals, such as Charlie Kirk.
