Guest Post: Turning Up the Heat on Arctic Frost

Dr. John Eastman outlines the Biden DOJ's unconstitutional search to find evidence of a crime, any crime, in an outrageous attempt to bring federal charges against him and other Trump associates.

On September 17 (Constitution Day, no less), Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released an unclassified version of the Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation memo. The memo is as stunning as it is politically slanted.

At the outset, it lists a number of so-called “Lines of Effort” for investigators to pursue as potential crimes, conduct that represented the ordinary exercise of free speech and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, both of which are protected by the First Amendment. Activity involving “propagating false election fraud allegations,” for example, or a “scheme to have a false slate of electors … submitted,” or “filing numerous unsubstantiated fraud lawsuits related to the 2020 presidential election” were to be investigated by the Biden regime.

I am directly named in one investigative pursuit, the “Pressure Pence/Eastman Plan,” which was described as “an attempt to pressure Vice President Pence to reject the legitimately cast votes of electors from certain states or otherwise suspend the elector counting process, followed by an armed attack on the U.S. Capitol.” (Emphasis added.)

Of course, the whole dispute was whether illegality in the conduct of the election rendered the electoral votes from certain swing states NOT legitimately cast, and as a Michigan court has just held in dismissing the criminal charges against the Trump electors in Michigan, those individuals were exercising their constitutionally-protected right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

But the most egregious part of that litany is the false claim the protest at the Capitol was an “armed attack.” The only person who carried and used a firearm on January 6 was Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd, who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt at near point-blank range that afternoon. The false narrative of an “insurrection” was already in full swing and animated the totality of the bogus investigation.

Looking for Evidence of a Non-Crime

The memo also includes five single-spaced pages of subpoenas or search warrants that were issued to scores of financial institutions, apparently seeking financial transaction data from the accounts of a wide range of organizations and individuals: the Save America PAC, Conservative Partnership Institute and its Senior Partner, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Mike Lindell’s My Pillow company, America First Policy Institute, the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Trump for President campaign committee, The Public Interest Legal Foundation, and numerous lawyers including former NY City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Assistant Attorney General of the United States Jeff Clark.

Talk about a Biden enemies list!

My name appears in the subpoena list 16 times. Seven of those subpoenas were issued to financial institutions with which I have never had an account, including American Express, TIAA Bank, Discover, Elan Financial (whatever that is—never heard of it). One was to JP Morgan Chase, which held the mortgage on my home until I refinanced it with another mortgage company more than 20 years ago. Another was Wells Fargo, at which I did not even open an account until the year after the 2020 election dispute.

And most egregiously, one was to the financial institution where the 529 education accounts for my kids are held.

In what universe could the Biden FBI have had probable cause to scour the financial records of institutions in which I have never held accounts, or to search through my kids' education accounts? The document released by Senator Grassley lists the probable crime underlying each subpoena, but there are none listed for any of the subpoenas issued in reference to me.

Clear Cut Violations of the Constitution

Many, perhaps all, of these therefore appear to be “general warrants,” an outrageous violation of the Fourth Amendment, which requires that searches be conducted only upon probable cause; warrants also must identify with particularity the things to be searched or seized. Indeed, the very reason we have the Fourth Amendment was to prohibit general warrants such as had been issued by the King and was one of the causes of the Revolutionary War.

The same was true for the search warrant issued for seizure of my phone, which appears to also be identified in the Grassley document. It authorized seizure of my phone and “all” data on it — a general warrant, given the volume of data on modern phones.

The Department of Justice’s excuse was that the initial warrant only authorized the “seizure” of all data, but that a second warrant identifying which data could be searched would be required and subsequently obtained. The prohibition against general warrants applies as much to “seizures” as to “searches,” so that excuse won’t fly.

More egregiously, the Biden DOJ then searched the data—I learned of this when they started asking me whether some of the communications they had viewed were privileged. When I asked how they had been able to search that data since I had not seen any subsequent warrant, I was told that because the phone was by then in their possession, they served the warrant on themselves. Outrageous abuse, and clear constitutional violation, in my view.

The people that perpetrated this abuse of our criminal justice system need to be held accountable. Kudos to Senator Grassley and his investigative team on the Senate Judiciary Committee for getting the receipts on this and, as importantly, making them public.

This would seem to be more fodder, gift-wrapped on a silver platter, as it were, for the grand jury that Attorney General Pam Bondi has already convened in response to the “Crossfire Hurricane” Russia Hoax criminal referral from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this summer.

Time to turn up the heat on “Arctic Frost” and hold feet to the fire!

Memo:

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Dr. Eastman is a Senior Fellow at The Claremont Institute, former Professor of Constitutional Law and law school Dean, and one of the attorneys for President Trump challenging illegality in the conduct of the 2020 election.