Numerous congressional Republicans are claiming to be victims of lawfare and Biden-era “spying” by the FBI, citing information revealed by FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino about former Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s work building legal cases against President Trump while at the DOJ.
[NOTE: As NPR described Smith’s work when the Special Counsel began winding down his investigations after Trump’s 2024 election win, “Smith brought two indictments against Donald Trump, the first for clinging to power in 2020, events that culminated in the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The second was for hoarding classified documents and obstructing FBI efforts to retrieve them.”]
With Bongino releasing a heavily redacted FBI document appearing to show that the FBI conducted “limited toll analysis on limited tolls records” associated with eight GOP Senators who had close ties to Trump, Republicans — both on the list and off — are claiming the government was weaponized against them by the Biden administration.
One of those on the list, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), reacted to Bongino’s reveal by concluding that the “document shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues during its Arctic Frost investigation into ‘election conspiracy’ Arctic Frost later became Jack Smith’s elector case against Trump.”
Many GOP Senators who weren’t on the list, like Alabama’s Katie Britt, also aligned with Grassley’s outrage, though without commenting on his assertion about being “spied on” — which is not an activity the document reveals.
This is indefensible.
Everyone from the Biden Administration involved in this decision must be investigated. https://t.co/PQpgPtAtbE
— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) October 6, 2025
When another Senator on the list, Ron Johnson of Minnesota, asserted that the document should “shock every American” and that “we were surveilled simply for being Republicans,” Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) replied by calling Johnson “shameless” and contradicting his chief claim.
You are shameless.
You laundered Russian misinformation in 2020 and then communicated with the WH on Jan 6.
You weren’t surveilled.
DOJ obtained basic records after the fact —date, time and length of call, but no substance — to confirm Trump’s effort to overturn the election. https://t.co/vkeB5IuiQN
— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) October 8, 2025
“You weren’t surveilled,” Goldman wrote, saying that the DOJ “obtained basic records after the fact —date, time and length of call, but no substance — to confirm Trump’s effort to overturn the election.”
Addressing the outraged Republican reaction, Goldman’s House colleague, Eric Swalwell (D-CA), responded to elected Republicans who posted about the document and, asserting that lawfare is a Trump administration act, repeatedly asked the same question: “did any of these senators speak out when Trump DOJ collected Schiff and my phone/email records during first term?”
Did you say anything when Trump spied on me and Schiff? https://t.co/JFcYhmnIIJ
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) October 7, 2025