▶ 0:23:25>> I hereby call to order this hearing.
▶ 0:23:29Arctic Frost: The modern watergate. 50 years ago, watergate exposed a simple but profound abuse of power. Operatives tied to a sitting president broke into a building to secretly gather information from the political opponents by blogging offices and seizing documents. What followed was just as troubling. Efforts to use the powers of government to conceal it.
▶ 0:24:00Arctic Frost: To pressure investigators. To shut down inquiries. To avoid accountability. Even though the operation failed in its ultimate objective, the american people did not treat it lightly. The consequences were swift and severe. The president resigned in disgrace, facing near certain impeachment.
▶ 0:24:28Arctic Frost: Dozens of officials, more than 40 individuals connected to the scam were indicted or jailed. Because the attempt itself was the offense. We recognize the simple truth. A failed crime is not an insignificant one. A man who pulls the trigger and Mrs. is no less guilty than one that hits his mark. The intent is the same, the danger is the same and the crime is the same.
▶ 0:24:59Arctic Frost: If watergate taught us anything it is that even a single abuse of power carried out by a handful of individuals can shake the foundations of our republic. What we confront today, the biden administration's arctic frost scheme, is not a single act.
▶ 0:25:19Arctic Frost: It is a modern watergate trading a break-in at one office for a digital sweep into approximately 100,000 private communications. More than a dozen senators and thousands of individuals' lives. Even that comparison falls short. It is something far broader. An operation that aligned democrats across all three branches of government.
▶ 0:25:49Arctic Frost: The biden executive branch through doj and the fbi wielding investigative power against political opponents. Democrat appointed judges in the judiciary through warrants, secrecy orders and deference failing to serve as a meaningful check. And members of the legislative branch who should be the first line of oversight choosing instead to look the other way.
▶ 0:26:15Arctic Frost: Just like watergate, these officials deserve to be investigated, tried, impeached and brought to justice. Let's examine how the operation was carried out step-by-step. In early 2022, senior leadership within the biden department of justice made the decision to open investigation targeting president trump and his campaign apparatus.
▶ 0:26:39Arctic Frost: Attorney general merrick garland, deputy attorney general lisa monica and fbi director chris wray all personally approved the opening of the investigation. On april 4, 2022, they signed a confidential memo with each of their signatures.
▶ 0:27:03Arctic Frost: That fact matters, because watergate was carried out in secret by operatives who were not brazen enough to act with formal written authorization from the highest levels of the department of justice. Arctic frost was fully authorized, formalized and executed through the official powers of the united states government, bipartisan democrats -- by partisan democrats.
▶ 0:27:32Arctic Frost: In the fall came the nearly 200 subpoenas. We are talking about information pertaining to hundreds of entities and individuals. Over 400 republican allied groups and individuals, including the most sensitive categories of personal data gathered, retained and in some accounts shared across offices. Watergate was about a handful of files in a single office.
▶ 0:27:58Arctic Frost: This reached into tens of thousands of private communications, emails, records, and personal data. Toll records, bank records, donor lists, law firm records. Other personal files related to every major conservative organization were subpoenaed. Who were the targets?
▶ 0:28:20Arctic Frost: Donald trump's campaign, the rnc, the conservative partnership institute, save america packed, america first policy institute, even mypillow, because god knows we have a national security threat from rogue pillows threatening our country. Watergate broke into an office. Arctic frost reached into the private lives of thousands of americans.
▶ 0:28:54Arctic Frost: Conservative leaders found themselves equally violated. The biden administration sought the phone records of 20% of the republicans in the senate, including multiple members of this committee, including myself. Without her knowledge, the fbi took the cell phone data of nearly 20% of the republicans in the senate. Including information about with whom we were talking, how long we were talking and from where we were calling. Toll records are not trivial.
▶ 0:29:21Arctic Frost: They are a map of your life, giving insight into your relationships, your movements, your patterns. Such invasive subpoenas were granted by judge bowes berg, a democrat appointed judge on the premise that any of us are to be cleared as duly elected united states senators would destroy evidence, tamper with witnesses or obstruct justice.
▶ 0:29:50Arctic Frost: The judge assigned to those orders like he was printing the menu and a denny's. Every member of the senate is likely to destroy evidence. Such invasive subpoenas are an abuse of power. Recently even more troubling facts emerged. The department of justice subpoenaed the toll records of now fbi director kash patel.
▶ 0:30:21Arctic Frost: Now white house chief of staff susie wiles. They were not aiming low. They were trying to take out everyone on the other side. Both were at the time private citizens and key members of president trump's 2024 election campaign. Imagine the reverse.
▶ 0:30:40Arctic Frost: Imagine for just one moment the president's department of justice had secretly attained the phone records -- obtained the phone records of senator schumer, senator whitehouse, senator durbin, senator hirono and senator padilla. My democrat colleagues would be losing their minds right now in this hearing if the trump department of justice had done that.
▶ 0:31:06Arctic Frost: Imagine if a republican attorney general or fbi director or republican appointed judge had all signed off on a covert effort to sweep up the communications locations, data and call history of every democrat affiliated organization an individual in the united states. Imagine if a judge, a republican appointed judge signed an order that said senator durbin will destroy evidence if he is aware of this subpoena. That is what this judge did. Would anyone in this hearing room call that routine?
▶ 0:31:39Arctic Frost: Would democrats call that normal law enforcement activity? With the press shrugged shoulders? Of course not. There would be wall-to-wall coverage. There would be cries of authoritarianism. They were the emergency hearings demands resignations and talk of impeachment before the sun went down. Instead my democrat colleagues can barely get their heart rate above 60 beats per minute.
▶ 0:32:08Arctic Frost: Arctic frost is the culmination of a gross pattern of abuse by democrats for partisan ends to elect and reelect a democrat president. In 2016, obama's fbi started spying on the trump campaign a month before election day.
▶ 0:32:30Arctic Frost: In 2020, biden's fbi met with senators to throw off their investigation into the now infamous hunter biden laptop, calling the laptop this information. The claim we now know is false. The fbi went to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee and lied to him in an effort to change the outcome of a presidential election.
▶ 0:32:56Arctic Frost: Democrats for years have exhibited the pattern of abusing law enforcement powers for the sake of politics. A pattern this committee under the leadership of chairman grassley is now working to uncover and expose. Because no wood administration, republican or democrat has business turning the surveillance powers of the federal government against its political opposition. 50 years ago, this nation was confronted with an abuse of power.
▶ 0:33:26Arctic Frost: It responded not with indifference but with accountability. One of the big differences of watergate versus arctic frost, when richard nixon and his corrupt attorney general and corrupt administration abused the law enforcement powers to go after their political opponents, republican senators stood up to the president of their own party and defended the rule of law.
▶ 0:33:53Arctic Frost: Where is even a single democrat senator who has said one word about this abuse of power? Is there not one? There are 47 democrats in this body. Is there not one that can say, you know what? Turning the department of justice into the attack machine of the dnc is now with the doj is supposed to be. We were tested then. There was accountability.
▶ 0:34:27Arctic Frost: We are being tested again now. The question is really simple. Will he the same standard? Will you defend the rule of law or will we abandon it? Ranking member white house.
▶ 0:34:44Sen. Whitehouse: Last month, kash patel fired roughly a dozen agents and analysts from the fbi's ci 12 unit, a counterintelligence unit dedicated to protecting americans from foreign espionage. One of the four connectors at this unit specializes in is iran and its proxies.
▶ 0:35:15Sen. Whitehouse: According to cnn, this unit was, "instrumental in tracking potential threats." after the first trump administration killed a top iranian official in 2020. Just days after patel fired these agents, president trump started a war in iran that has already led to the deaths of at least 13 american service members.
▶ 0:35:45Sen. Whitehouse: If it seems like a bad decision to fire career law enforcement professionals who specialize in defending against iranian threats just days before we start a war with iran, that's because it is. It's even worse when you consider why patel fired these agents. .
▶ 0:36:13Sen. Whitehouse: These agents had been assigned to jack smith's investigation into donald trump's illegal hoarding of classified documents at mar-a-lago. Patel claims as part of a investigation jack smith issued grand jury subpoenas for toll records for patel and for susie wiles when they were private citizens.
▶ 0:36:42Sen. Whitehouse: Patel also insists the fbi recorded one of wiles' phone calls. If he ask anyone with law enforcement experience to react to news that the fbi may have sought these toll records, the response is simple. Of course they did. Virtually every investigation involves subpoenas for toll records, for any number of reasons.
▶ 0:37:12Sen. Whitehouse: Sometimes it is to construct a timeline of events. Sometimes it is to rule out wrongdoing. Sometimes it is to prepare for a witness interview. Sometimes it is to help understand the scope of a conspiracy. In fact, the first trump doj did the same thing republicans have criticized jack smith for doing.
▶ 0:37:43Sen. Whitehouse: Getting the toll records of members of congress, following doj policies in place and getting nondisclosure orders. Here is what chairman grassley said at the time.
▶ 0:38:01Sen. Whitehouse: "an investigation into members of congress and staff are nothing new, and the justice department has procedures for such sensitive investigations." apparently won the trump doj does it, it's nothing new. When jack smith does it, it's a modern watergate. With patel, it's obvious why jack smith was looking at him.
▶ 0:38:29Sen. Whitehouse: Patel made himself a fact witness and that investigation. He went on podcasts bragging about how he planned to post classified information online at donald trump's direction, and how he personally witnessed donald trump declassify records.
▶ 0:38:50Sen. Whitehouse: We have known for years that smith was looking into patel's role because smith subpoenaed patel to testify before a grand jury. Where is patel's grand jury testimony? Why is that still hidden? The same goes for miss wiles.
▶ 0:39:19Sen. Whitehouse: Trump showed her classified documents when she did not have a security clearance. The same month that indictment came out the pac she ran received his highest donation ever from the trump campaign. That is something any investigator would take a close look at.
▶ 0:39:46Sen. Whitehouse: The same goes for the rest of the subpoenas my colleagues want to talk about today. Jack smith was investigating a massive conspiracy by trump officials and their allies to overturn an election and attacked the capitol on january 6. Is anyone surprised he issued subpoenas as part of that investigation?
▶ 0:40:17Sen. Whitehouse: And why? As smith told the house judiciary committee, his investigation, "involved interviewing and subpoenaing records of republicans because that is who donald trump sought to pray on to stay in office." somebody geared up the republican attorneys general association, raga, the sponsor of the rally that turned into
▶ 0:40:47Sen. Whitehouse: The riots on january 6 and pay for robo calls urging for people to march to the capitol building and fight to protect the integrity of our elections. Jeffrey clark who worked at doj at the time tried to convince the department of justice leadership to send a letter to try to overturn the election results in georgia.
▶ 0:41:15Sen. Whitehouse: President trump almost made him acting attorney general because clark was willing to help trump try to overturn the election. Pretend for a minute that jack smith and all the doj and fbi officials who helped his investigation did do something wrong. What would real oversight look like?
▶ 0:41:37Sen. Whitehouse: First, republicans would accept jack smith's offer to testify before this committee under oath instead of holding a series of hearings on conspiracy theories without anything new to say. Why not call him? Hear it from the man himself.
▶ 0:41:58Sen. Whitehouse: Second, republicans would let us eject smith's full report on his -- let us eject smith's full report -- let us see jack smith's full report into the investigation. We need volume two on his classified documents crimes investigation.
▶ 0:42:20Sen. Whitehouse: Democrats on this committee have asked doj to give us volume two, but republicans have been silent as president trump and his maga doj have fought to bury the report. Third, republicans would oblige kash patel to tell us what he told the grand jury in that classified documents investigation. They might also hold patel accountable for misleading this committee in sworn testimony.
▶ 0:42:52Sen. Whitehouse: I have asked patel multiple times under oath to describe his testimony to us, as rule six-e plainly allows. He said he could not because it was under seal by the chief judge for the U.S. district court for the district of columbia.
▶ 0:43:13Sen. Whitehouse: It turns out that very chief judge lady said -- later said nothing was preventing patel from divulging his testimony to the committee as the rule allows. That testimony was false. When patel came back, he told another why. This time -- another lie. That he had released the transcript of his testimony. Here is the transcript he might have been talking about.
▶ 0:43:44Sen. Whitehouse: As you can see, wait a minute. You can't read it because it is almost completely redacted. And, it is not even from the right hearing. This is from the time patel appeared before the grand jury and the mar-a-lago classified documents crimes case to assert his fifth and then it, because he was afraid of being prosecuted.
▶ 0:44:16Sen. Whitehouse: The testimony he actually ended up giving once his fifth amendment plea was accepted and he was immunized we have never seen. If this committee is so interested in jack smith's investigation, it should want to know what patel had to say and that investigation. Why he was so afraid to say it and why he is so afraid to tell us about it now and instead repeatedly lied to the committee.
▶ 0:44:46Sen. Whitehouse: I will close by talking about with this hearing should be about. Those counterintelligence agents kash patel fired are not the only career law enforcement officials forced out by this administration. Nor are they the only ones purged because they were assigned to investigate president trump's crimes. Here is what has happened since president trump took office. The fbi has lost at least 300 agents working on national security matters.
▶ 0:45:18Sen. Whitehouse: Transferred agents out of the domestic terrorism operations section. Disbanded the foreign influence task force. Instructed joint terrorism task forces to work on immigration cases. At doj, more than 6000 employees have left. The national security division has lost up to one third of its leadership.
▶ 0:45:42Sen. Whitehouse: Half the line prosecutors in the counterterrorism section and half the workforce in the counterintelligence section. Attorney general bondi disbanded doj's task force klepto capture, kleptocracy team and asset recovery initiative.
▶ 0:46:03Sen. Whitehouse: It is the same story throughout the administration where conspiracy theories and obsessions with revenge are decimating the career law enforcement who protect us against national security threats. Major cuts at the office of the director of national intelligence. Laura blumer forcing at the head of the nsa and U.S. cyber command.
▶ 0:46:29Sen. Whitehouse: Dhs gutting its office to prevent domestic terrorism and putting a 22-year-old with no experience in charge. And, cutting the workforce of cisa which protects us from cyber security threats from bad actors like iran.
▶ 0:46:50Sen. Whitehouse: Americans are made less safe every time this committee holds a hearing promoting fake outrage about jack smith and denigrating fbi and doj professionals. Every time maga influencers convince the president of fire agency heads and every time kash patel fires fbi experts because he wants to distract from his own incompetence, his wasting of taxpayer dollars to fly around the world on a private jet, is
▶ 0:47:22Sen. Whitehouse: Partying at the olympics, or his undermining of the fbi's investigations. Instead of chasing conspiracy theories down rabbit holes. That is what we should be focused on.
▶ 0:47:39Sen. Cruz: Chairman grassley.
▶ 0:47:44Chair Grassley: Thank you for the outstanding statement to give this morning that reminds us a lot of history, as well as what is going on now. Today is the second in a series of art frost hearings I have authorized as chairman. I started my investigation and arctic frost in july of thing based on credible whistleblower disclosures. Senator johnson has since joined the investigation. I appreciate our joint work.
▶ 0:48:16Chair Grassley: Our goal is to publicly release as many records as possible. The public has a right to know how the taxpayer dollars have been used and who was involved up and down the decision-making chain. Today we are making new records public. Some records are dated january of 2023 before jack smith's team secretly sought most member tolling data.
▶ 0:48:42Chair Grassley: The records include a list created by smith's team naming 14 members of congress for whom they wanted to see tolling data. Some of those members are senators on this very committee. But the list notes that smith's team already knew these members had communication, so include text for some members with individuals associated with president trump.
▶ 0:49:10Chair Grassley: Jack smith was certainly aware of this effort. To quote from the emails, "before we tell main justice, we will fire up subpoenas for so many members' tolls, I should make sure that jack is aware." another record states, "unlikely many of these members will
▶ 0:49:41Chair Grassley: Cooperate -- unlikely many of these members will cooperate with our investigation." the same record says the members, "likely have a valid speech or debate privilege immunizing them from compelled testimony." I have already publicly released other records showing smith's team was warned that subpoenaing congressional information could
▶ 0:50:13Chair Grassley: Violate the speech and debate clause. I have publicly released 197 subpoenas seeking sensitive financial information from over 400 republican groups and individuals. Some of the information sought included legislative branch communications.
▶ 0:50:37Chair Grassley: Even with these constitutional concerns, smith's team sought and obtained member of congress tolling data. When one phone company pushed back, smith backed down. That calls into question the necessity of obtaining member data.
▶ 0:50:57Chair Grassley: Another record calls into question jack smith's assertion that the house january 6 committee materials,, "comprised a small part of the office's investigative record." this new record states of the january 6 report, "leadership teams fully read and reviewed.last weekend we went over it page by page and
▶ 0:51:30Chair Grassley: Incorporated it into our investigative plan." indeed, these same records that we are making public today says smith's team will be, "logging all information contained in the report." also the record states smith's team will "leverage" the report to "avoid needless interviews
▶ 0:52:01Chair Grassley: And focus the interviews we perform on underdeveloped topics." the records create additional questions about smith's conduct, need for member data, and candor to the court and the public. The democrats have criticized us for not bringing jack smith before us at the beginning. You have heard that again today.
▶ 0:52:31Chair Grassley: If we followed the democrats' premature and ill advised strategy, we would not have had a great deal of information we now have that shows jack smith misled congress and the public, if not outright lied. Lastly, today we will also make public two subpoenas for toll records of fbi director patel along with nondisclosure orders that kept them secret.
▶ 0:53:01Chair Grassley: This committee's work will continue. Thank you.
▶ 0:53:05Sen. Cruz: Ranking member durbin.
▶ 0:53:11Sen. Durbin: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Last week america lost a man who devoted his life in service to our nation. Robert mueller earned a bronze star, purple heart serving as a marine risking his life in vietnam. He led the fbi after 9/11, securing our nation after the worst terrorist attack in american history. Mueller was an amazing man.
▶ 0:53:43Sen. Durbin: The registered republican, he was appointed and reappointed by not only republican president george h.w. Bush, but bill clinton, george w. Bush and barack obama. He holds the historic distinction. He is the only fbi director other than jaeger hoover -- j.
▶ 0:54:12Sen. Durbin: Edgar hoover had his time extended beyond the limit of a vote of 100-0 in the united states senate. He was given approval to serve an additional two years under president obama. I worked with robert mueller for many years.
▶ 0:54:30Sen. Durbin: I remember reaching out to him after 9/11 and news that the technology available at the fbi was so ancient on the day of the attack of 9/11 that you could buy more modern and effective technology at a radioshack. I said to him I'm not an expert in this area whatsoever, but I want to help you if I can. I wanted to be a bipartisan effort and we worked together for years.
▶ 0:55:00Sen. Durbin: I never, ever questioned bob mueller's devotion or integrity. How did president donald trump respond to news of robert mueller's passing? I quote the president. "good. I'm glad he's dead." let me repeat that. The president said, when notified of robert mueller's passing, "good.
▶ 0:55:31Sen. Durbin: I'm glad he's dead." those reprehensible words should be condemned by every member of the committee on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, under republican leadership this committee has been complicit in the attack on robert muller. Spending years spreading to go theories into the russian interference into the 2016 election.
▶ 0:55:58Sen. Durbin: We are here to attack and special counsel investigation led by another honorable public servant. As the title makes clear, the majority is wasting this committee's time and resources on another basis partisan -- baseless partisan witch hunt. President trump spent months trying to unlawfully overturn his 2020 residential election loss. It was known as the big lie. We heard it over and over again.
▶ 0:56:29Sen. Durbin: It culminated in the deadly attack on the capitol, which many of us lived through on january 6. Then president removed hundreds of pages of classified documents from the white house. As a private citizen he held them in his mar-a-lago residence. Some next to a toilet, refusing for more than a year to return these documents.
▶ 0:56:53Sen. Durbin: Despite this unprecedented and egregious conduct by republican -- my republican colleagues claimed the watergate level scandal is the actual investigation into trump's regime transaction -- transgressions. Not his historically dangerous actions.
▶ 0:57:09Sen. Durbin: It would have been a dereliction of duty for any prosecutor investigating the effort to overturn the 2020 election not to subpoena organizations like turning point usa, an organization that helped plan the so-called stop the steal rally that led to the january 6 deadly attack on the U.S. capitol. Similarly, any prosecutor worth his salt would have subpoenaed the kash patel who was a material witness in the classified documents case.
▶ 0:57:40Sen. Durbin: Patel even infamously claimed to be the sole witness of president trump's supposedly blanket declassification of classified documents. Is my republican colleagues were serious about this issue, they would have called special counsel jack smith to testify under oath before this committee.
▶ 0:58:00Sen. Durbin: The democrats on this committee notified the chairman in october of last year, six months ago, that smith was not only available to testify, he would do so under oath and answer the questions raised in this hearing. What has happened in the last six months? No action by the republican leadership of this committee to bring the soul major witness -- sole major witness under oath to ask specific questions. Why?
▶ 0:58:31Sen. Durbin: Why is this committee are free to bring jack smith before it under oath? For six months they have avoided it. So they can continue the sham hearings over issues that don't exist. The majority is also refusing to support democrats requests to release volume two of special counsel smith report -- counsel smith's report. Let me draw attention to what we should be addressing.
▶ 0:59:01Sen. Durbin: Over the past year president trump, attorney general bondi and director of the fbi patel have systematically dismantled the federal bureau of investigation head, the premier law enforcement agency in united states and throughout the world. These purges are making every american less safe. Most recently, patel reportedly fired at least six agents and several other fbi personnel who have been assigned to work related to president trump's mishandling of classified documents.
▶ 0:59:30Sen. Durbin: These terminations were seemingly to save face with president trump in response to the negative press director patel received for his embarrassing appearance chugging beer at the olympic games. Several fired ages reportedly were part of the global counterintelligence squad when we are at war with iran.
▶ 0:59:56Sen. Durbin: In other words, director patel's political retribution has weakened the fbi's ability to counter threats at the exact time that not only america, but certainly the minimum and uniform needed them to keep themselves safe. Watergate is a story of a president who engaged in a vast illegal conspiracy to remain in power and use his control of the levers of government to obstruct the investigations into his own misconduct.
▶ 1:00:25Sen. Durbin: Back in the senate stood up for the constitution and the rule of law, exposing nixon's corruption by investigating serious allegations against him. Today senate republicans waffle between indifference to outright celebration of president trump's brazen misconduct despite the real dangers it poses. We cannot continue on this course.
▶ 1:00:49Sen. Durbin: The american people face real challenges from citizens being executed for exercising their first amendment rights and the skyrocketing prices for the cost of living under this administration. This hearing will not help a single person other than donald trump. The republican majority should be better for their constituents. The senator from texas should know a dead horse when he sees one. This hearing is an attempt to throttle a dead horse to a gallop.
▶ 1:01:21Sen. Durbin: There are not enough giddy ups in the world to accomplish that. I yield.
▶ 1:01:25Sen. Cruz: Chicago meant there was a lot of radio references. -- for a chicago man.
▶ 1:01:36Sen. Whitehouse: I would like to ask this transcript to be made and exhibited. It is 22 pages of examination of the witness and on which only these words are public. Upon the advice of counsel I will be invoking my fifth amendment privilege. The whole rest of it is redacted. I assume he can go in as an exhibit with the image of all the reactions.
▶ 1:02:07Sen. Whitehouse: I would like to ask you be made an exhibit in this proceeding.
▶ 1:02:11Chair Cruz: It will be admitted. I enter into the record 30 newly uncovered and significant investigatory documents regarding arctic frost that shed light on the decision making of the biden department of justice.
▶ 1:02:31Chair Cruz: This includes 197 cepeda targeting over 400 republican individuals and entities that former special counsel jack smith and his team issued as a part of the indiscriminate election case against president trump. These are not routine materials. These are internal investigative records that shed light on how and why the biden department of justice authorized and carried out this operation.
▶ 1:02:56Chair Cruz: They detail the scope of the subpoenas issued, the categories of the 400 individuals and organizations targeted, and the decision-making process inside the department at the highest levels. They allow us to see clearly and for the first time how this investigation was conducted from the inside. This new information when not have been known but for congressional oversight. I would have introduced the witnesses at this hearing. The first witness is Mr. will chamberlain, senior counsel of the article three project.
▶ 1:03:27Chair Cruz: Mr. chamberlain graduated from the university of the pacific in economics and received his jd from georgetown university law center in 2015. After graduating georgetown, he joined quinn emanuel in los angeles is an associate where he practiced complex commercial litigation. Mr. chamberlain worked as an attorney at the competitive enterprise institute focusing on class-action litigation.
▶ 1:03:55Chair Cruz: En . He revised the nation's oldest conservative magazine. Is also vice president of external affairs at the edmund burke foundation, which organizes national conservatism conferences around the world. Christopher o'leary retired from the fbi as a member of the senior executive service in september of 2023 after two decades of leading counterterrorism investigation and operations. Mr.
▶ 1:04:23Chair Cruz: O'leary's last assignment was he was government director of hostage recovery where he led an interagency task force dedicated to the mission of safely bringing home americans taken hostage by terrorist organizations. Mr. o'leary is a former united states marine corps gunnery sergeant and iraq war combat veteran. Thank you for that, sir. Mr.
▶ 1:04:46Chair Cruz: O'leary holds a bachelor's degree from rutgers university, a masters degree from georgetown university's school of business and a masters degree in government and national security from harvard university. Our third witness is margot cleveland, an attorney, legal analyst and investigative journalist and former academic.
▶ 1:05:07Chair Cruz: After graduating from the notre dame law school where she earned a points prize, the law school's highest honor, she served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge in the seventh circuit court of appeals. Ms. cleveland is a former faculty member at the university of notre dame, where in 1998 she received the frank o'malley undergraduate teaching award, the highest award for undergraduate faculty members. Ms.
▶ 1:05:31Chair Cruz: Cleveland serves as the federalist senior legal correspondent where she helped lead the federalist reporting on the russia collusion hoax, which won the tao grand prize for investigative journalism and being 25. Ms. cleveland his counsel for the new civil liberties alliance where she practices constitutional law and has co-authored supreme court amicus briefs and a petition for certiorari. Mr. chamberlain, you Mr.
▶ 1:06:00Chamberlain: Are recognized.
▶ 1:06:01Mr. Chamberlain: Thank you, chairman cruz. Thank you for the opportunity.
▶ 1:06:07Chair Cruz: Hold on a second. I need to ask each of you to stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about to give before this subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? All of have answered affirmatively. Now, Mr. chamberlain, you are recognized.
▶ 1:06:30Mr. Chamberlain: Thank you, chairman cruz, ranking member whitehouse. Borders reported first that in 2022 en banc 23, jack smith and the biden justice department subpoenaed toll records of calls from kash patel and susie wiles as part of the now infamous arctic frost. Both are private citizens and the surveillance continued while wiles was comanaging president trump's election campaign.
▶ 1:07:01Mr. Chamberlain: This was not shocking. This committee has been investigating smith's abuse of power against republican senators alongside judge james boasberg' orderss. Reuters. The lead. The article revealed in 2023, the biden fdic of dishes he recorded a phone call between susie wiles and her attorney. This is a remarkable breach of privilege.
▶ 1:07:25Mr. Chamberlain: The reuters article relying on two fbi sources claimed her attorney had been aware of the surveillance and the phone call, which would have been a shocking ethical breach by her lawyer. The following day, wiles' lawyer denied consenting to recording and stating that if he ever pulled a stunt like that he would not and should not have a license to practice law. His denial is in my view credible. What lawyer in the right mind would seek with the consent to law enforcement recording a privileged phone calls with the client?
▶ 1:07:58Mr. Chamberlain: A lawyer's donal raises more questions and answers. Why did two fbi sources tell reuters lawyer consented? Where the sources lying or relying on false records created by fbi agents working with smith? It would not be the first time personnel had falsified records in their pursuit of president trump. Kevin kleinsmith pled guilty to intentionally falsifying information to obtain a phis award in the russia gate investigation. The scandal is not nearly that it was recorded it was how the records were hidden.
▶ 1:08:30Mr. Chamberlain: The primary digital case management system is called sentinel. Investigators can apply a special designation to a file called prohibited access. Files become invisible and standard searches. If an agent runs a keyword search to hit the documents on the system returns a false negative and reports no responsive documents.
▶ 1:08:50Mr. Chamberlain: While this prohibited access designation might make theoretical sense for files dealing with the most sensitive classified members, it is not make sense that records of susie wiles phone call being surveilled would qualify. The agency marked the records prohibited would have known that. If her lawyer had been aware of the reporting, it would constituted consensual monitoring. It would likely require doj approval but it could be lawful.
▶ 1:09:14Mr. Chamberlain: If her lawyer did not consent to the recording, we are likely looking at an illegal wiretap of the phone call between a presidential campaign manager and her own lawyer. One where the agent or agents who conducted the wiretap lied about her lawyer's lack of consent and then coded it as a prohibited file in the hopes that no one would ever find out about it.
▶ 1:09:36Mr. Chamberlain: This is more brazen than anything during the russiagate investigation. We hear liberal law professors complained about the it administration undermining the doj and fbi's independence. Sophisticated listeners to translate independent as unaccountable. Illegal wire taps in an appropriate -- inappropriate file classifications are from an fbi that acted with impunity.
▶ 1:10:05Mr. Chamberlain: The president is tasked with the responsibility to take care and that the laws be faithfully executed, not submit to the fbi and doj. This but can help in providing essential oversight and scrutiny. I welcome any questions.
▶ 1:10:18Chair Cruz: Mr. o'leary, you are recognized.
▶ 1:10:22Mr. O'Leary: Chairman, ranking member and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. In his farewell address to the nation, george washington warned that a health and survival of the republic required leaders to exercise virtue and resist the pull of partisan division. It is in the spirit I offer my testimony today.
▶ 1:10:46Mr. O'Leary: I come before you've not as an advocate for any political party or position, but as a nonpartisan former special agent of the fbi where I served for over two decades. My intent is to provide the committee with the clear experienced-based understanding of how the fbi operates. His investigative standards institutional culture and professional norms that guide its work.
▶ 1:11:13Mr. O'Leary: The men and women of the fbi have long stood as a quiet bastion between order and chaos, guided not by politics but by an enduring commitment to the constitution and the rule of law. Your character is forged in an environment where integrity is not aspirational. It is required. Every day, often without recognition, they make decisions that demand moral clarity, professional restraint and personal courage.
▶ 1:11:42Mr. O'Leary: These are not abstract virtues within the fbi. They are lived expectations reinforced through training, supervision and deeply rooted in institutional culture. The fbi cozy investigative process is guarded in predication, facts, intelligence and evidence. Not ideology or affiliation. Agents are trained to clearly articulate and document the factual basis for opening and continuing investigations.
▶ 1:12:15Mr. O'Leary: Those decisions are subject to multiple layers of supervisory and legal review. Equally important is the internal culture of the fbi. The bureau I served had no tolerance for political ideology or personal bias influencing investigative work. This is not simply a matter of formal policy. It was an expectation reinforced through the leadership, pure accountability and institutional norms. The credibility of the fbi both in court and in the eyes of the public depends on net neutrality.
▶ 1:12:47Mr. O'Leary: Fbi professionals understand that their work must withstand scrutiny, not only in the moment but years later. Allegations that the fbi has engaged in broad coordinated conspiracies to investigate individuals based on political affiliation or ideology are inconsistent with my experience and unsupported by evidence or reason.
▶ 1:13:11Mr. O'Leary: Yet the absence of credibility to these claims has not deterred director kash patel from pursuing what can only be understood as a campaign of retribution against his own personnel. When agents and analysts are removed not for misconduct but for their lawful participation in duly authorized investigations, the conclusion that such actions are politically driven is self-evident.
▶ 1:13:38Mr. O'Leary: This form of retaliation against the dedicated professionals of the fbi has eroded trust in leadership, damaged morale, introduced uncertainty across the workforce, and disrupted the continuity of ongoing operations.
▶ 1:13:53Mr. O'Leary: Equally concerning are the national security implications, with the loss and marginalization of experienced personnel and diminished institutional knowledge drastically impacted the fbi's ability to effectively confront threats from terrorism, espionage and cyber adversaries. Left unchecked, director kash patel's actions risk inflicting generational arm on an institution central to the safety and security of the nation.
▶ 1:14:25Mr. O'Leary: In closing, I would emphasize the strength of the fbi and our broader system of justice depends on its independence from political influence. It is a principle that those who served within the bureau understand as fundamental to their duty. Being an fbi agent is neither a job, norjob nor a profession. But rather a vocation.
▶ 1:14:47Mr. O'Leary: Service to the nation is not a slogan in the fbi, it's a calling, a steadfast commitment to the cause of freedom, democracy, and justice. This ethos is rooted in a tradition of excellence that spans generations. The legacy of the g men is not merely a cultural artifact but a standard, one that reflects professionalism, discipline, and an unyielding pursuit of truth.
▶ 1:15:16Mr. O'Leary: Each new generation of g men and women inherent not only the responsibilities of the role but the weight of that legacy and the obligation to uphold it. Day after day, the men and women of the fbi answer the call and choose duty over comfort, principle over expedience, and service over self.
▶ 1:15:35Mr. O'Leary: In their work is often unseen and their successes unheralded, but the nation is safer because of their steadfast commitment, their adherence to the rule of law, and their fidelity to the ideals that defined the fbi. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to answering any of your questions.
▶ 1:15:54Chair Cruz: Thank you. Ms. cleveland, you are recognized.
▶ 1:15:58Ms. Cleveland: Chairman cruz, ranking member whitehouse, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify concerning the grave constitutional violations inflicted as part of the arctic frost investigation. After the 2020 election, an anti-trump fbi agent named tim thibault attempted to use the justice department to destroy the president. Thibault's efforts led to the launch of arctic frost.
▶ 1:16:27Ms. Cleveland: Soon after, merrick garland tapped jack smith, a “hyper-aggressive prosecutor,” known to “overstretch the meaning and intent of the law,” to serve as special counsel. Smith proved himself true to form, indicting trump for allegedly violating a statute enacted in the aftermath of enron, based in part on a theory of criminal liability the supreme court would later hold invalid.
▶ 1:16:55Ms. Cleveland: The supreme court would later halt smith's efforts to prosecute trump for actions that fell within the president's official duties. Beyond being a partisan in his own right, smith stacked his team with partisan democrats, such as j.p. Cooney and ray hulser. Cooney and hulser served as smith's top deputies and in them, we see the clear double standard and political bias that permeated the doj and fbi.
▶ 1:17:27Ms. Cleveland: Before joining smith's team, cooney crafted an outrageous sentencing memorandum that sought to send trump advisor roger stone to prison for seven to nine years. Cooney's sentencing recommendations were so unhinged that then-attorney general william barr intervened. Cooney responded by spreading unfounded rumors that barr and the acting U.S.
▶ 1:17:49Ms. Cleveland: Attorney “were being improperly political,” with media leaks furthering that narrative, eventually leading to an inspector general's investigation. The ig cleared the trump administration but chastised cooney.
▶ 1:18:09Ms. Cleveland: Hulser, for his part, demonstrated his partisan proclivities when he headed up the public integrity section and refused the fbi's request to open an investigation into the clinton foundation. But hulser's partisan protection racket went further when he withheld a detailed six-page timeline of the clinton foundation investigation from the then-U.S.
▶ 1:18:35Ms. Cleveland: Attorney operating out of little rock, providing instead an abbreviated 2-page summary that “had omitted all references to interference from doj and fbi leadership.” in contrast, when the target was trump, hulser, along with cooney, drafted a memorandum to justify subpoenaing the toll records of about a dozen members of congress, notwithstanding internal email discussions acknowledging a clear speech or debate clause problem.
▶ 1:19:07Ms. Cleveland: They then hid the details of these subpoenas by using the “prohibited access” functionality of sentinel, which ghosts fbi records. As this committee well knowsbecause many of you were the victimssmith approved the subpoenas and obtained the toll records of senators blackburn, graham, hagerty, hawley, lummis, johnson, kennedy, scott, sullivan, and tuberville.
▶ 1:19:33Ms. Cleveland: Only senator cruz escaped this invasion into his privacy and the violation of the speech or debate clause because his cell phone provider questioned the subpoena. From this subcommittee's january 7, hearing, you also know smith's team sought a non-disclosure order from chief judge james boasbergapparently without informing him the subpoenas targeted members of congress.
▶ 1:19:58Ms. Cleveland: I say “apparently” because, to date, chairman cruz's request that the non-disclosure application be unsealed has been ignored. Yet again we see the double standard and weaponization. Judge boasberg has still failed to order that smith and his prosecutors show cause for why they should not be held in contempt for concealing that members of congress were the ones who were being targeted.
▶ 1:20:26Ms. Cleveland: This fact should not be ignoredif you are to believe smith and the administrative office of the courts' testimony that judge boasberg did not know your identities were involved. It makes absolutely no sense that boasberg would not enter a show cause order to hold smith accountable for violating your rights, given judge boasberg's nearly year-long crusade to hold a member of the trump administration in contempt.
▶ 1:20:56Ms. Cleveland: We know now that smith's violations of the speech or debate clause, rubber-stamped by judge boasberg, went further, and subpoenaed the toll records of former speaker kevin mccarthy and house judiciary committee chair jim jordan, under cover of non-disclosure orders.
▶ 1:21:17Ms. Cleveland: Add to these subpoenas the hundred or more served on individual republicans, including trump's attorneys, as well as republican organizations such as charlie kirk's turning point usa. They didn't seek merely toll records but also bank records which revealed their donor base. The breadth of these constitutional intrusions is unprecedented, but to recap: smith was unconstitutionally named special counsel, in violation of the appointments clause.
▶ 1:21:49Ms. Cleveland: The subpoenas and the toll records violated the speech or debate clause. The vastly unjustified subpoenas to republicans in organizations connected to them violated first amendment associational rights. The targeting of trump's attorneys also implicates his sixth amendment right to counsel. Using prohibited access to barry records is a huge due process violation that raises potential violations of brady. Smith and his team must be held accountable. Thank you.
▶ 1:22:23Chair Cruz: Thank you. Let's start with the foundation. Ms. cleveland, jack smith issued nearly 200 subpoenas, is that correct?
▶ 1:22:34Ms. Cleveland: Yes.
▶ 1:22:36Chair Cruz: Though subpoenas targeted over 400 republican individuals and organizations.
▶ 1:22:41Ms. Cleveland: Correct.
▶ 1:22:42Chair Cruz: Many of whom had no connection to those who enter the capitol on january 6.
▶ 1:22:48Mr. Chamberlain: Absolutely.
▶ 1:22:50Chair Cruz: Some of those organization didn't even exist on january 6 is that correct?
▶ 1:22:55Mr. Chamberlain: It is.
▶ 1:22:57Chair Cruz: We are not talking about a narrow investigation, we are talking about a sweeping operation targeting virtually the entirety of the other side politically.
▶ 1:23:06Ms. Cleveland: It was a fishing expedition.
▶ 1:23:08Chair Cruz: Let's turn to the constitution. Subpoenaing the toll records of members of congress, does that raises serious constitutional concerns?
▶ 1:23:16Ms. Cleveland: Absolutely. In fact we have the pin and notify the special counsel's office on those concerns. Jack smith had apparently said that he was going to consult with the solicitor general, according to the release of the information from senator grassley this morning.
▶ 1:23:38Ms. Cleveland: Yet when he was deposed by the house and was specifically asked if he spoke with the solicitor general, he said on this discrete issue, no.
▶ 1:23:49Chair Cruz: Among other issues, it raises significant issues with the speech and debate clause, correct? So much so that as you noted, when jack smith subpoenaed at&t to get my toll records, and at&t refused to comply with the subpoena because they concluded that inviolate the speech and debate clause, is that correct?
▶ 1:24:09Ms. Cleveland: Absolutely correct, and they backed down.
▶ 1:24:12Chair Cruz: Jack smith did not try to enforce that subpoena. He did not go to court and litigate the matter.
▶ 1:24:18Ms. Cleveland: He did not.
▶ 1:24:20Chair Cruz: Does that suggest, as it does to me, that he knew dan well what he was doing was illegal and would not be upheld in court?
▶ 1:24:26Ms. Cleveland: It does suggest that.
▶ 1:24:28Chair Cruz: When the federal government subpoenas donor lists, internal communications, organization records, does that implicate the first amendment and also freedom association in particular?
▶ 1:24:40Ms. Cleveland: It does. The supreme court made that clear in the naacp case.
▶ 1:24:46Chair Cruz: Mr. chamberlain, aside from the legal violations, what specific crimes, if any, were actually uncovered as a result of the arctic frost investigation?
▶ 1:24:59Mr. Chamberlain: I'm not aware of any crimes that were uncovered.
▶ 1:25:02Chair Cruz: When the senators, donors, organizations, individuals that were surveilled and subpoenaed ever learned about the arctic frost investigation had trump not won in 2024?
▶ 1:25:15Mr. Chamberlain: Probably not many because of these nondisclosure orders but also the fact that a lot of these records we are now just learning about them because they were in these prohibited access files only limited to the fbi director. If the fbi director was a democrat, no reason we would know about them.
▶ 1:25:31Chair Cruz: How would you compare the scope of the violations in arctic frost to watergate?
▶ 1:25:37Mr. Chamberlain: If anything, it might be greater. The scope of this in terms of the sheer number of people and organizations affected, and as I discussed, this brazen violation of attorney-client privilege, wiretapping a phone call between susie wiles and her lawyer, these are greeters offenses. If watergate was about a single break in, this is effectively compound that by 200.
▶ 1:26:02Chair Cruz: Mr. o'leary I appreciate your service. One of the things you testified, you said the effectiveness and legitimacy of the fbi depends on its independence from political influence. I very much agree with that and I will say as an alumnus of the department of justice, I am deeply saddened and angry that under president biden, the department of justice and the fbi were weaponized and its integrity badly compromised.
▶ 1:26:32Chair Cruz: You are right, that is how the fbi is supposed to behave, how the department of justice is supposed to behave. Jack smith was not investing in a crime based on evidence. He issued subpoenas to capital records of the following senators.
▶ 1:26:48Chair Cruz: Michael e, seated to my right, josh hawley, lindsey graham, john kennedy, seated to my right, marsha blackburn, ron johnson, rick scott, bill hagerty, dan sullivan, tommy tuberville, cynthia lummis, and myself. That is over 20% of the republicans in the united states senate. Mr.
▶ 1:27:17Chair Cruz: O'leary, is it consistent with the obligations of the department of justice and the fbi to issue subpoenas with no factual basis and no legal basis?
▶ 1:27:26Mr. O'Leary: Senator, it is not, in my experience, fbi agents would never approach a matter without the proper justification and particular facts to open their investigation.
▶ 1:27:38Chair Cruz: Ok good. So you said they would never do that. Judge boasberg signed an order, holding the order here where he concluded, and I'm going to read, the court finds reasonable ground to believe such disclosure come in other words notifying the senators on that list, will result in destruction of or tampering of evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses in serious jeopardy of the investigation.
▶ 1:28:08Chair Cruz: Are you aware of any factual basis whatsoever than a dozen senators will destroy evidence?
▶ 1:28:15Mr. O'Leary: I am not but I will tell you nondisclosure orders are routine parts of investigations.
▶ 1:28:21Chair Cruz: Based on facts. Give me any hypothetical fact! Do you have any facts that I will destroy any evidence. . Me personally. Because jack smith went into court and said I will destroy evidence if I know about the subpoena! And this cloud signed the order, one after the other after the other. I'm a member of the bar. I take my obligations seriously. The fbi signed off on that.
▶ 1:28:54Chair Cruz: Mike lee concluded he would destroy evidence, john kennedy, louisiana, maybe. I will give a special dispensation for the great state of louisiana. But there is no basis. Is it consistent with the unity obligation to also ask a judge to violate the law and not inform the judge of it?
▶ 1:29:13Mr. O'Leary: No, it would not be.
▶ 1:29:16Chair Cruz: Usc section 2668 especially bars nondisclosure orders applying to the senate, and yet come in the lawless department of justice, I assume they didn't tell judge boasberg, we are asking you to violate the law, would you sign this? Do you assume that?
▶ 1:29:34Mr. O'Leary: You would have to doj, but you make a good point. .
▶ 1:29:39Chair Cruz: Thank you. Ranking member whitehouse.
▶ 1:29:43Sen. Whitehouse: Just to follow-up on that point, Mr. o'leary, is the reason that a prosecutor would pursue a nondisclosure order for a toll records subpoena necessarily that it is the subject of the subpoena who would attempt to interfere with or obstruct the investigation, as opposed to the subject of the investigation who would attempt to interfere with
▶ 1:30:14Sen. Whitehouse: And obstruct the investigation?
▶ 1:30:16Mr. O'Leary: Senator, it depends on the investigation. It could be the subject of the investigation, could be associates. Idea of a nondisclosure order is to not really let an individual know that they are under investigation.
▶ 1:30:31Sen. Whitehouse: But one cannot infer from the existence of a nondisclosure order any accusation that the subject of the order was intending to interfere or obstruct. It could just easily as be, it was actually the subject of the investigation, one of the conspirators, for instance, who the court, who the prosecutor was concerned about.
▶ 1:30:57Mr. O'Leary: Certainly could be. As I was communicating to senator cruz, nondisclosure orders are a routine part of investigations.
▶ 1:31:05Sen. Whitehouse: Understood. In your view, what has happened to the fbi and doj's national security capabilities in the last 15 months?
▶ 1:31:16Mr. O'Leary: They have been decimated. There has been generational damage done.
▶ 1:31:22Sen. Whitehouse: With respect to the quiet bastion you refer to and the standards of virtue and integrity that you spoke so passionately about, were those standards of virtue and integrity, fidelity, bravery, integrity of the fbi met by agents who kash patel then turned on and fired?
▶ 1:31:52Mr. O'Leary: There is rampant morale degradation, uncertainty amongst the ranks, really disheartened career federal public servants who have been dismissed without cause.
▶ 1:32:12Sen. Whitehouse: Because, in fact, their colleagues understood that day, in fact, met those standards for fidelity, bravery, and integrity, and were nevertheless fired.
▶ 1:32:25Mr. O'Leary: Correct.
▶ 1:32:26Sen. Whitehouse: Doj and the fbi run under close institutional checks and balances designed to protect the integrity of the organization. Were those applicable to special counsel?
▶ 1:32:39Mr. O'Leary: I would assume so. I was not involved in that investigation at all but I can speak to the process that washington field office would follow. Those are the agents that supported that investigation.
▶ 1:32:52Sen. Whitehouse: They would follow traditional, regular fbi guidelines. Are you aware that the trump department of justice, in the first term, subpoenaed information from members of congress and members of congress 'staff including toll records?
▶ 1:33:16Mr. O'Leary: The fbi conducting public corruption investigations have been part of its mission for years. I know it is probably disconcerting to any member of congress or public official, but the fbi does it with the same integrity that it conducts any investigation. I would say to a fellow irishman , we probably work with them on investigation, but the fbi pursues these despite what side of the aisle you are on.
▶ 1:33:43Sen. Whitehouse: And they did in the first trump term of office, including getting nondisclosure orders so that the members of congress did not know their toll records had been subpoenaed, correct?
▶ 1:33:53Mr. O'Leary: That's correct. It's routine.
▶ 1:34:04Sen. Whitehouse: Tell me a little bit, as we wrap up here, about the work of the ci12 unit, what condition it is now in as hostilities with iran exist?
▶ 1:34:23Mr. O'Leary: Ci12 is a foreign counterintelligence squad, agents dismissed from there, counterintelligence division, fbi headquarters worked a variety of counterintelligence priorities. Iran is one of them. Dismissing some of these people just days before the war with iran kicked off creates problems with sustained focus and could impact operations.
▶ 1:34:50Sen. Whitehouse: In fact, some of the fbi's institutional knowledge is contained in the knowledge and experience of senior fbi agents. So when they are purged for political reasons, that component of the bureau loses something fairly significant.
▶ 1:35:16Mr. O'Leary: That is true, senator. There were some senior leaders at headquarters who were removed. In this last year alone, two assistant directors from the washington field office were both removed.
▶ 1:35:28Sen. Whitehouse: My time is up. Thank you, chairman.
▶ 1:35:31Chair Cruz: Without objection --
▶ 1:35:34Sen. Whitehouse: Sorry, with respect to the question of the ndo's, the reason for that, I like to put into the record the letter that I wrote to speaker johnson, giving what I consider to be the accurate background of that, dated january 16, 2026.
▶ 1:35:58Chair Cruz: Without objection, it will be introduced to the record. I also want to introduce a letter from chairman grassley to the doj office of inspector general raising concerns that in 2017, doj subpoena personnel phone and email records of republicans and democrats congressional staff.
▶ 1:36:20Chair Cruz: Also entering into the record a november 8, 2023 letter from me, chairman grassley, senator lee to attorney general garland raising similar concerns, requesting information and subpoenas on congressional staff. Contrary to what senator whitehouse said, republicans did raise concerns about the doj obtaining records from congressional staff of both parties. I will say just a minute ago, Mr. o'leary, you are being asked by senator whitehouse about investigating members of congress.
▶ 1:36:47Chair Cruz: It is certainly true doj has a long tradition if there is evidence of particular misconduct. For example, our former colleague senator menendez is in prison for corruption. If you have evidence of criminal misconduct of one individual, the department of justice has an obligation to investigate that. Would you agree that is qualitatively different from a fishing expedition targeting 20% of the republicans in the senate? Would you agree that is qualitatively different?
▶ 1:37:14Mr. O'Leary: I'm not familiar with the details of either investigation so I wouldn't want to speculate. Sen. whitehou
▶ 1:37:26Sen. Whitecruz: Would you be trd if tomorrow the trump doj issued a subpoena for every democrat on the judiciary committee?
▶ 1:37:31Mr. O'Leary: That is based on factual evidence.
▶ 1:37:34Chair Cruz: Let me be clear, I would be damn troubled and that would be an abuse of power. I will predict not a single democrat will say even a word about the abuse of power on their side. That double standard is troubling. Senator lee.
▶ 1:37:51Sen. Lee: Thank you, senator cruz for this hearing. It's an important topic. A half-century ago, president nixon resigned, he did so under pressure, on the basis of public outrage that stemmed from a break-in at dnc headquarters. An act of lawfare, may better said, political espionage.
▶ 1:38:19Sen. Lee: Today, the media and my democrat colleagues have fallen conspicuously silent when confronted with a scandal that in some ways is a much larger proportion because it involves the official law enforcement apparatus of the U.S. government in a much more direct way and that one did. President biden's systematic weaponization of the department of justice and law enforcement against his political opponents is a development of staggering proportions. By development, I mean scandal.
▶ 1:38:47Sen. Lee: Just like the watergate break-in , arctic frost was ultimately an attempt to sway the results of a presidential election. This comparison may even be unfair to president nixon, who never attempted to quash dissent by putting up -- putting the opposition candidate in prison for trumped up charges. Thankfully, the potted administration failed in that misguided effort.
▶ 1:39:16Sen. Lee: President trump was elected by the people to become the 47th president of the united states, but we have to ensure this kind of lawfare cannot occur again. Mr. chamberlain, I like to start with you. Your testimony focuses, among other things, on an fbi recording of a 2023 phone call between susie wiles, who was at the time managing president trump's presidential campaign and her lawyer.
▶ 1:39:47Sen. Lee: According to the fbi, the lawyer was aware of the recording, but isn't it true that the lawyer did he had ever consented to that arrangement?
▶ 1:39:54Mr. Chamberlain: That's true, that was widely reported.
▶ 1:39:58Sen. Lee: If the lawyer did not consent, and your testimony today is that this would have been, and was an illegal wiretap by the fbi in the absence of her lawyer's consent with the fbi.
▶ 1:40:10Mr. Chamberlain: That's correct.
▶ 1:40:12Sen. Lee: The fbi designated this as a prohibited file to prevent anyone from finding out about it.
▶ 1:40:17Mr. Chamberlain: That seems to be correct.
▶ 1:40:20Sen. Lee: They did something they were not supposed to do, designated as a prohibited file to cover it up. She did the president be able to direct the fbi to spy on the campaign of his political opponent?
▶ 1:40:31Mr. Chamberlain: Absolutely not.
▶ 1:40:33Sen. Lee: Listen to a private conversation between a presidential campaign manager and her lawyer in many ways is much more serious as an abuse of government power than an attempted wiretap of the dnc headquarters in watergate.
▶ 1:40:47Mr. Chamberlain: Correct. There are two interest being invaded. The wiretap generally but then doubly in vases because it is supposed to be a privileged conversation.
▶ 1:40:57Sen. Lee: Which regardless of who is involved in it is supposed to be privileged. That takes on additional degrees of seriousness when that person happens to be a client represented by a lawyer who happens to be managing the presidential campaign of the then incumbent president's exclusive challenger effectively. Ms. cleveland, you reference the fbi's use of protected access tag for arctic frost subpoenas.
▶ 1:41:31Sen. Lee: What is this functionality, why does it raise due process concerns in your mind?
▶ 1:41:35Ms. Cleveland: Prohibited access is a functionality which makes the records invisible. When there is an investigation going on, the fbi agents are doing searches, by keywords of names. It will come back and say there are no results. They will believe there are no results. We already have evidence that this has been used in the investigation of trump.
▶ 1:42:04Ms. Cleveland: We also have evidence that it's been used in other investigations that were high-profile. From the due process concern, a lawyer is entitled to have evidence that is exculpatory to their clients. If there is exculpatory evidence or even evidence that calls into the credibility of one of the witnesses, that has to be turned over. It cannot be turned over if they don't know about it.
▶ 1:42:35Ms. Cleveland: That is a huge problem from the due process perspective.
▶ 1:42:38Sen. Lee: So you are forestalling upfront what would be part of the defendant's due process in the event of an eventual print eventual pr criminal proceeding. Before my time expires, to what extent did judge boasberg know, I would have had reason to know, what the ndo's recovering?
▶ 1:43:01Ms. Cleveland: Without seeing the application, it's impossible to say what you should have known. But when senator grassley released those documents, it indicated that smith's team was speaking with the prior chief judge of the D.C. district court about subpoenas and executive privilege. That raised the concern of, was their conversation going on with judge boasberg, as well?
▶ 1:43:28Ms. Cleveland: If not, did smith's team to sign not to have the same kind of conversations because they were concerned that judge boasberg wouldn't go along with it? We don't know what judge boasberg new, but we know that he didn't demand smith come in and explain himself, as he has done time and time again with the trump administration in trying to hold someone in contempt there.
▶ 1:43:50Sen. Lee: So this would be outside of the norm not only for this type of action, but out of norm even for what judge boasberg has done in other cases?
▶ 1:44:00Ms. Cleveland: In calling them in for contempt, absolutely.
▶ 1:44:04Sen. Lee: Thank you.
▶ 1:44:08Chair Cruz: Senator durbin.
▶ 1:44:12Sen. Durbin: Thank you, senator lee. Ms. cleveland, you have given a pretty lengthy bill of particulars in reference to the special prosecutor jack smith. I tried to keep up with your statement.
▶ 1:44:30Sen. Durbin: You have accused him of being a hyper-aggressive prosecutor, partisan, deputies who were politically partisan, running some sort of partisan protection racket, unconstitutionally appointed, a litany of constitutional misconduct, guilty of a fishing expedition, on and on. Would there be value for you to be able to ask Mr. smith questions about your assertions?
▶ 1:44:59Ms. Cleveland: Only after I have seen enough background information to pois good questions, such as senator grassley's release this morning revealed for the first time --
▶ 1:45:12Sen. Durbin: Asking in general terms, not to be specific.
▶ 1:45:16Ms. Cleveland: As a lawyer, I'd have to give you the specifics.
▶ 1:45:20Sen. Durbin: Just asking you if you had a chance to ask jack smith questions.
▶ 1:45:25Ms. Cleveland: Not until I have seen the documents that will inform the questions and be able to confront him. You don't do a deposition until you have done --
▶ 1:45:34Sen. Durbin: I think that goes without saying in the practice of law. If you can ask questions under oath, if that would be more value than just general questions?
▶ 1:45:43Ms. Cleveland: Again, after I have seen the documents.
▶ 1:45:48Sen. Durbin: You don't think under oath puts any obligations under a person that's being asked questions?
▶ 1:45:54Ms. Cleveland: You can be under oath. If you are not confronted with the evidence, the answer is not going to be as informed.
▶ 1:46:01Sen. Durbin: It sounds like you are free to face him.
▶ 1:46:04Ms. Cleveland: Not at all.
▶ 1:46:07Sen. Durbin: If you could do it in the setting of the senate judiciary committee, you get a chance to ask those questions under oath, do you think that might be of value?
▶ 1:46:15Ms. Cleveland: After I reviewed all the relevant documents including the ones hidden in prohibited access.
▶ 1:46:22Sen. Durbin: How about we make sure that meeting of the judiciary committee is public so america can witness the questions and answers, would that be of value?
▶ 1:46:31Ms. Cleveland: After all the documents have been released, yes.
▶ 1:46:34Sen. Durbin: You wouldn't want to question him until all the documents have been released?
▶ 1:46:42Ms. Cleveland: Relevant documents hidden in prohibited access, absolutely you need those before you question him.
▶ 1:46:46Sen. Durbin: That might be a luxury that most attorneys would not have access to.
▶ 1:46:50Ms. Cleveland: They shouldn't have been hidden in the first place.
▶ 1:46:53Sen. Durbin: It isn't a question of hiding as much as legal access. The point I'm getting to is, for the last six months, democrats on this committee have said to republicans on this committee, bring jack smith into this room, sitting down in front of the microphone, put him under oath, and ask whatever questions you have.
▶ 1:47:15Sen. Durbin: All these assertions, bill of particulars issued by some of the witnesses today, would have to be confronted by him directly, under oath in a public hearing for america to see. Of course, any lawyer who has been around a law school more than 15 minutes knows there is value to the circumstances of asking those questions. But they will not do it.
▶ 1:47:38Sen. Durbin: For six months, the republican majority wants hearing after hearing of what is wrong with jack smith, and the one person they should ask that directly of, jack smith, they will not call before this committee. What are they waiting for? If this is worse than watergate, as some senators have submitted, is it time we get to the primary source, jack smith under oath? Under penalty of perjury if he fails to testify? I don't get it.
▶ 1:48:09Sen. Durbin: What are they waiting for? They would rather have the hearings than the answers. That, to me, doesn't help. Mr. o'leary, how many years did you get of service to the federal bureau of investigation head?
▶ 1:48:21Mr. O'Leary: Over 20.
▶ 1:48:22Sen. Durbin: Did you retire?
▶ 1:48:26Mr. O'Leary: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:48:28Sen. Durbin: You have set quite a bit of a bit oabout what the fbi means to you. One thing that you noted, your statements about robert muller. What you had to say about him is amazing. You say, the example set by robert mueller establishes a standard of quiet professionalism, integrity, and disciplined leadership that permeated every level of the bureau. That is high praise.
▶ 1:48:59Sen. Durbin: I feel the same way about him and I hope I made that clear in my opening statement. Where are we now? 15 months into this president, the damage has been done to the federal bureau that you described as generational damage. What is the future of the fbi?
▶ 1:49:16Mr. O'Leary: What the fbi deserves and needs is an unbiased leader, somebody with investigative and operational experience, leadership experience, and a commitment to public service and justice. Unfortunately, I do not see that in the current director.
▶ 1:49:40Mr. O'Leary: He does not have any background or experience and lacks the character and disposition to carry out the duties of the american people, and the country is less safe under his leadership.
▶ 1:49:50Sen. Durbin: I agree with your conclusion, and a great deal has to be done to rehabilitate and resurrect this fine agency. >> senator kennedy.
▶ 1:50:05Sen. Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Mr. chamberlain, I believe four telephone companies received in these subpoenas, the phone records, metadata, of 20 members of congress. Is that your understanding?
▶ 1:50:29Mr. Chamberlain: That sounds right to me, yes.
▶ 1:50:34Sen. Kennedy: I don't have time to talk about all of them, let me pick one. Verizon. About 90,000 employees, I think, $140 billion worth of revenue. Does verizon hire w's to work in its legal department?
▶ 1:51:00Mr. Chamberlain: I should think not. They probably have a good reservoir of lawyers to pick from.
▶ 1:51:07Sen. Kennedy: I suppose you are one of the lawyers at verizon. You don't strike me as a dummy.
▶ 1:51:19Mr. Chamberlain: Thank you. Appreciate that.
▶ 1:51:23Sen. Kennedy: And you got a subpoena from jack smith with an ndo, nondisclosure order, signed by judge boasberg. Do you think a reasonably competent lawyer at verizon would know who jack smith was?
▶ 1:51:53Mr. Chamberlain: Yes, I think so.
▶ 1:51:56Sen. Kennedy: Do you think a reasonably competent lawyer at verizon would know who judge boasberg was, or would inquire about him?
▶ 1:52:07Mr. Chamberlain: I think you could pretty quickly google him, if you were concerned that he wasn't a federal district judge, it would be obvious that you could figure out what is going on.
▶ 1:52:18Sen. Kennedy: It was pretty widely known that president biden instructed the attorney general to sue president trump, and then he hired jack smith. Wasn't that on the front page of every paper?
▶ 1:52:43Sen. Kennedy: If you were an attorney at verizon and got a subpoena like this, wouldn't you say, maybe I need to check and see who Mr. smith is subpoenaing here?
▶ 1:52:55Mr. Chamberlain: Especially once I found that it was a representative come it would have raise the flag of is their legal exception here that doesn't apply in other cases?
▶ 1:53:05Sen. Kennedy: Do we know if the employee who received this subpoena at verizon even sought a legal opinion from an attorney at verizon?
▶ 1:53:16Mr. Chamberlain: I do not know.
▶ 1:53:18Sen. Kennedy: Let's assume for a second verizon, the sophisticated company it is, is not so incompetent they wouldn't have a lawyer look at this. Lawyer looks at it and says, jack smith. It says ndo signed by judge boasberg. Lawyer looks at the names, as a reasonably confident lawyer would. Members of congress. If that was you, what would you do?
▶ 1:53:48Mr. Chamberlain: I would make a few phone calls, do legal research to confirm that comply with this order was lawful. I might gently try to understand what was going on.
▶ 1:54:02Sen. Kennedy: You would probably discover the law, being the competent lawyer that you are. Judicial orders can bar verizon front picking up the phone and calling the member of congress. You would probably find that statute.
▶ 1:54:27Sen. Kennedy: And if you did find that statute , in order to protect verizon, wouldn't you have a motion to quash?
▶ 1:54:36Mr. Chamberlain: That is exactly verizon didn't do any of that. They just sucked all of this information up like a hoover deluxe. They didn't even look at, that we know of, to see if these were members of congress.
▶ 1:54:55Mr. Chamberlain: That's right. That's a good question. I need to read the statute more clearly to see what the actual penalties are. I might guess there might be some pretty reasonable civil penalties for having done so.
▶ 1:55:14Sen. Kennedy: What kind of remedies if any are there for the fact that judge boasberg said that he had reasonable grounds to believe that these members of congress would destroy evidence? And that he made that conclusion ?
▶ 1:55:32Mr. Chamberlain: It is political. You cannot sue judge boasberg for damages or his judicial decision-making. The only remedy is political.
▶ 1:55:42Sen. Kennedy: Would you consider it to be grossly incompetent if joe's brownsburg -- judge boasberg had not even inquired who these people were, whether they were members of congress?
▶ 1:55:56Mr. Chamberlain: Extremely incompetent.
▶ 1:56:01Sen. Kennedy: That is all I have, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:56:04Sen. Lee: Senator hirono.
▶ 1:56:10Sen. Hirono: , thank you, Mr. chairman. Here we are once again. We are in this hearing espousing republican conspiracy theories, once again focusing on jack smith. How many times do we democrats have to say why don't we just bring jack smith before this committee? Why do we not put him under oath? Why don't we just ask him questions?
▶ 1:56:38Sen. Hirono: The witnesses this morning are speculating as to what he told the judge, with the judge was told by jack smith. Why don't we just call jack smith? That has never been adequately answered in my view. It is time, rather than continuing to go down this rabbit hole.
▶ 1:57:07Sen. Hirono: The term, building a dead cow, beating a dead horse comes to mind. This is what this exercise is. It is milking a dead cow. I look that up, describes a completely futile pointless, or waste of effort that will yield no results.
▶ 1:57:28Sen. Hirono: It implies trying to extract value, information, or result from a source that is already dead, exhausted, or incapable of providing anything further. So the further providing of information should come directly from jack smith. I am going to repeat what some of my colleagues have said. There are three things we can focus on with the work of this committee rather than wasting our time like this.
▶ 1:57:58Sen. Hirono: First is, call jack smith. Second, he has already offered to testify. We are not going to get much resistance from him. He has already testified before the house. He issued some reports and we should get access to volume two of jack smith's report.
▶ 1:58:27Sen. Hirono: Not only should become testify but we should get information that would be good for us to have. Volume two of jack smith's report. Thirdly, there's been a focus on kash patel, after he received immunity, he did testify to the grand jury. We have been trying to access the testimony.
▶ 1:58:54Sen. Hirono: Director patel has stonewalled and lied to this committee, saying he cannot provide the testimony. Yes, he can. Once again, my republican colleagues don't seem to care that he lied to this committee. As far as I'm concerned, we have ever refusal to confront the truth.
▶ 1:59:16Sen. Hirono: I am really disheartened to what is happening to an institution called the fbi, not to mention the department of justice, but the fbi that had, I would say, a reputation for doing the work that protected the american people. That is not the case. We are seeing people being fired not for lack of competence. In fact, they were very competent.
▶ 1:59:43Sen. Hirono: Not for misconduct but because they happened to question the leader, donald trump. This continuous effort on the part of my republican colleagues to just bow down to this president who doesn't believe the rule of law applies to him is amazing. The american people are getting it.
▶ 2:00:04Sen. Hirono: That is why millions of them, in fact, this saturday, there will be another rally, no kings rally, millions of americans are saying, donald trump, you are not our king. You cannot run this country through executive orders. You cannot act as if the rule of apply to him. By the way, no thanks to the supreme court.
▶ 2:00:31Sen. Hirono: I think their decision on his immunity was one of the worst decisions of this court, and there are many. Let me ask one question to Mr. o'leary. In your experience, and I know there are some very fine fbi agents who either were fired or left, over 1000.
▶ 2:00:51Sen. Hirono: Can you go over again, the fact that these very experienced people were engage in white-collar crime investigations, cyber attacks, etc., their departure, tell us how their departure is making our country safer.
▶ 2:01:08Mr. O'Leary: Senator, the loss of agents and analysts and professional staff across the fbi is impacting a variety of programs from white-collar crime, protecting the integrity of our financial markets, public corruption.
▶ 2:01:28Mr. O'Leary: Cyber, the head of the cyber division was fired, and exceptional agent that I served with four years, the head of the critical incident response group, acting director in the beginning of the trump administration, brian driscoll, was fired this past august because he refused to fire one of his employees without cause as directed by kash patel. Brian driscoll demonstrated the courage and integrity you would expect from a leader when he refused to do so.
▶ 2:01:59Mr. O'Leary: He in turn was fired himself, thrown out of the fbi after years of service. He is a recipient of the shield of bravery and the shield of valor. Shield of valor for being on a joint hostage recovery operation in syria with a special operations task force to rescue an american citizen. These are the kinds of individuals we are losing.
▶ 2:02:27Sen. Hirono: Thank you for standing up for an institution that deserves our support and instead we have a director who parties around, flies around a plane, visits his girlfriend. Give me a break. >> senator blackburn.
▶ 2:02:44Sen. Blackburn: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Mr. o'leary, I want to stay with you, if I may. My colleague across the aisle seems to have a problem with kash patel. You made a statement that you think he has made our country less safe. Do you own that statement?
▶ 2:02:59Mr. O'Leary: Yes, I do, ma'am.
▶ 2:03:02Sen. Blackburn: Have you heard of memphis, tennessee?
▶ 2:03:05Mr. O'Leary: I have been there many times.
▶ 2:03:08Sen. Blackburn: Are you fully aware of what the fbi and federal government has accomplished in memphis, tennessee?
▶ 2:03:15Mr. O'Leary: I think using fbi agents as part of a joint task force to reduce violent crime is very important. I'm aware of their effectiveness there, yes, ma'am.
▶ 2:03:25Sen. Blackburn: You are aware that director patel has been very involved in planning, organizing, implementing this, is that correct?
▶ 2:03:36Mr. O'Leary: I'm not personally aware.
▶ 2:03:38Sen. Blackburn: Let me make you aware of that. Are you aware that there have been over nine thousand arrests of violent criminals?
▶ 2:03:46Mr. O'Leary: If you say so, yes, ma'am.
▶ 2:03:50Sen. Blackburn: Would you say that arresting 9000 violent criminals makes the country more or less safe?
▶ 2:03:56Mr. O'Leary: It certainly makes that jurisdiction in memphis --
▶ 2:04:00Sen. Blackburn: Makes the entire country more safe. Would you say finding 150 missing children helps make this country more safe?
▶ 2:04:12Mr. O'Leary: Yes, it does, and fbi has been doing that for decades.
▶ 2:04:16Sen. Blackburn: In memphis, it is 153. You can stop being snarky, too. That would help. We have seen a 43% drop in overall crime, 36% drop in murder, 60% drop in carjackings in memphis.
▶ 2:04:36Sen. Blackburn: I wanted to bring all of this up because I think it is important that we focus on what we have been able to accomplish in the line of public safety when we appropriately use resources from the federal government, and when we are not having the doj weaponize itself and go after private citizens like susie wiles and kash patel were.
▶ 2:05:05Sen. Blackburn: When all of their records were subpoenaed in 2022-23. When we don't see the fbi going after 400 different conservative organizations which they did simply because they didn't like donald trump. They didn't like a lot of us, myself included. But you seem to be fine with that weaponization. You seem to think it is ok. Mr.
▶ 2:05:35Sen. Blackburn: O'leary, I find it unconscionable that you would sit there and defend them going after the records of private citizens, of elected officials and weaponizing the department of justice. But that is what they did.
▶ 2:05:58Sen. Blackburn: I think it is really unfortunate that this type of weaponization appears to be what we expect to come out of the biden administration. Mr. chamberlain, I want to come to you. Talk about that danger of the expectation of weaponization.
▶ 2:06:18Sen. Blackburn: The effect and the impact that that has on conservatives, and what congress need to do to mixer and this doesn't happen to anybody, whether it is a liberal or conservative. It seems we have a witness who is fine with it happening to conservatives, but I'm sure she would not be happy if it happened to a liberal.
▶ 2:06:40Mr. Chamberlain: It's a very big worry that you are effectively demeaning the first amendment because you're a christian the rights of people to engage in political advocacy if the underlying threat is, if you do this for the wrong side, we are going to bring federal law enforcement to bear upon you.
▶ 2:06:56Sen. Blackburn: Mr. o'leary, are you ok with it being weaponize to go after conservatives? Does that suit you? Did you think that was a justifiable use of taxpayer money and time?
▶ 2:07:08Mr. O'Leary: Absolutely not. Let me tell you, politics and fbi workspace are absent. Nobody knows or cares --
▶ 2:07:19Sen. Blackburn: It is my time. Ms. cleveland, what do you have to say about that?
▶ 2:07:24Ms. Cleveland: That is laughable. It is absolutely laughable. After everything we saw with crossfire hurricane, after what we are starting to see in arctic frost from the prohibitive files, it might be that you worked with the very few who were not political, but it is replete, everywhere.
▶ 2:07:50Ms. Cleveland: We had a ray holzer who wrote an op-ed I believe in the washington post after he was fired, complaining about him being fired for no reason. But what do we know no? He was the one who refused to investigate the clinton foundation, and he is the one who turned over to the U.S. attorney who was actually doing the investigation an abbreviated summary of what was going on so that it hid all of the doj and fbi protections and what they were doing to stop the investigations.
▶ 2:08:21Ms. Cleveland: It is laughable to say there is no politicalization of the fbi. Maybe there isn't any more because they fired the groups that were doing it.
▶ 2:08:31Sen. Blackburn: Thank you you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:08:34Chair Cruz: I want to thank each of the witnesses for your testimony. Written questions can be submitted for the record until tuesday, march 31 at 5:00 p.m. I will ask the witness is to answer and return the question to the committee by april 14 at 5:00 p.m. With that, this hearing is adjourned.