Trump calls for Jack Smith, others to be prosecuted over Jan. 6 probe
President Trump late Friday suggested that former Special Counsel Jack Smith, former Attorney General Merrick Garland and other Biden administration officials “should be prosecuted” over their involvement in the investigation into the president’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
In a Truth Social post published just prior to departing for his Asia trip, Trump also named former FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. All four officials are frequent targets of the president’s ire.
“Just in: Documents show conclusively that Christopher Wray, Deranged Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, and other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration, signed off on Operation Arctic Frost,” Trump wrote. “They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls. They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election. These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!”
It’s unclear what documents the president is referring to. The Hill reached out to the White House for comment.
Earlier in October, the Senate Judiciary Committee released an unclassified document showing the FBI analyzed the phone records of nine Republican members of Congress in 2023 during its Jan. 6 investigation under former President Biden. Among those targeted were Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.).
The “preliminary toll analysis” conducted by an unnamed special agent was part of the bureau’s “Arctic Frost” investigation, opened in April 2022 by Timothy Thibault, the former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office. The investigation preceded Smith’s later effort.
Trump has frequently railed against Smith. Prior to Election Day in 2024, he said the former prosecutor should be “thrown out of the country.”
Last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) — another Republican whose phone records were analyzed in 2023 — and other GOP lawmakers requested the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate Smith. The former special counsel later asked that he be allowed to appear publicly after House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demanded his testimony.