Over the last few weeks, the Arctic Frost surveillance story has been playing big with conservatives, but the mainstream media is pretty much ignoring it.
That has not stopped Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) from demanding that a provision related to the scandal be included in the year-end defense spending bill.
Stefanik went so far as to accuse Mike Johnson (R-LA) of covering up for the Deep State, which resulted in a meeting with Trump and House speaker to settle the issue.
Arctic Frost was the Jan. 6-related investigation that was headed by then-Special Counsel Jack Smith, one that wound up pulling phone records belonging to a handful of members of Congress.
These were all known Trump supporters, but the outrage over what happened grew more significant over the last week.
It was revealed that investigators allegedly withheld information from the judge who signed off on the warrants for the phone records, and he likely did not even know that the requests were targeting members of Congress.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) explained, "Smith went ahead with the congressional subpoenas anyway, and it appears he and his team didn’t apprise the court of member involvement. Smith’s apparent lack of candor is deeply troubling, and he needs to answer for his conduct."
Stefanik is not only a member of the House leadership team, but she is also running for governor in New York, so she is going to make a splash in the media whenever she can.
After it was reported that Johnson was blocking a provision Stefanik wanted in the upcoming spending bill regarding the weaponization of government assets, she blasted him for allegedly covering up for the Deep State.
She stated, “[T]he Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more.”
Stefanik continued, “He is siding with [Democratic Maryland Rep.] Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.”
After she attacked Johnson, Stefanik, who has a clear line to Trump, was granted a meeting with Johnson and the president to discuss the matter.
She then posted to her social media account, “After a productive discussion I had last night with President Trump and Speaker Johnson, the provision requiring Congressional disclosure when the FBI opens counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office will be included in the IAA/NDAA bill on the floor.”
The congresswoman continued, “This is a significant legislative win delivered against the illegal weaponization of the deep state. And, of course, while this is an important step, there is so much more work to do.”
I like everything that Stefanik did other than making this battle public, as I think it hurts the party and the cause, but it does get her some national attention, and that is what she is really after. These are the types of fights that I think need to be kept behind closed doors until after a resolution is achieved.
She could have flipped this entire narrative by keeping her complaints quiet, then coming out afterwards and saying that she'd had concerns, brought them up to Johnson, then to President Trump, and the three of them worked out provisions to ensure this type of surveillance never happens again. That way, she gets the same attention, but it does not make it look like a civil war is brewing within the party. But today, it is all about social media clicks, likes, and shares, which is why too many legislators use their phones to post on X before they use them to call their fellow members of Congress.
