Des Moines Sun

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on Newsmax’s “The Briefing” with Ed Henry to discuss his ongoing oversight of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, known as “Arctic Frost,” into former President Donald Trump. Grassley recently released information about 197 subpoenas issued by Smith and his team in connection with the case. Among those targeted were Republican organizations and individuals, including Newsmax host Ed Henry.

Grassley referenced emails from earlier this year in which prosecutor J.P. Cooney asked, “Can we do some work to nail down Trump’s role in this, perhaps with some process on Ed Henry’s LLC?” According to whistleblower records provided to Grassley, Smith also sought Apple records related to Trump, Henry, and the January 6 prison choir. A court order was later obtained to keep the subpoena confidential.

Discussing his findings on Newsmax, Grassley said:

“Well, of course, until now, we thought they were just after – to ruin President Trump and put Trump in prison and ruin him financially. Now, we know it was a fishing expedition to go after Republican organizations, people connected to Republicans [and] people that are conservative. Even Charlie Kirk's organization, TPUSA, was involved with this.

“So, it was very much a fishing expedition. And I think that they were spreading a wide net because they were looking for anything they could to hook on Trump, [to] put Trump in prison, keep him from running for president, and things of that nature.

“But Jack [Smith] subpoenaed all this stuff, and thank God the whistleblowers told us about it, gave us the documents, and that's why your name came out.”

On future steps for congressional oversight into Arctic Frost activities:

“...[T]he information that Pam Bondi put out about President Trump's telephone and his records, I released that back in March based upon information I got from whistleblowers.

“...[W]e have to get more documents from the bowels of the Department of Justice. And in those bowels of the Department of Justice are a lot of people that don't want this information out because they're probably very, very close to the liberal organizations in this town.

“But when we get these documents we're going to have hearings and get the information out. If there's prosecution that's obviously got to come from the executive branch of government not from [Congress]. But I hope to expose enough information so that that would happen.”

Grassley also commented on FBI documents related to former Director James Comey:

“Well a lot of the documents we've gotten from the FBI have come from that same burn room that you had in your question and I think the documents that have been available today give more evidence to the fact that Comey lied to the Congress of the United States. And I think that's very important.”

Addressing efforts toward ending what he called "the Democrats’ government shutdown," Grassley stated:

“Well for the first time this week there's some talk about reaching an end to it. It isn't reached yet but we were told to plan to be in session this weekend if we can actually get it done this week.

“If it doesn't it's going carry over and I don't know how long could go on. But this is first best news we had that it could end. And besides air traffic controllers and shut down airspace there's 42 million Americans that are on food stamps that can't get food stamps.

And people are going checkout counter finding out there isn't any money in their debit card from food stamps and they leave crying in sobs.”