Sen. Cruz Delivers Opening Remarks on Arctic Frost

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, chaired a hearing titled Arctic Frost: The Modern Day Watergate. The hearing focused on public new Arctic Frost records, including Biden Department of Justice subpoenas for now-FBI director Kash Patel and an additional 430 conservative organizations and individuals.

Click here or the image above to watch Sen. Cruz's opening remarks.

Sen. Cruz's opening statement as prepared below:

Fifty 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 their political opponents by bugging offices and seizing documents.

And what followed was just as troubling: efforts to use the powers of government to conceal it-to pressure investigators, to shut down inquiries, to avoid accountability. Even though that operation failed in its ultimate objective, the American people did not treat it lightly. The consequences were swift and severe.

The President of the United States resigned in disgrace, facing near-certain impeachment. And dozens of officials-more than forty individuals connected to the scheme-were indicted or jailed.

Because the attempt itself was the offense. In our law, we recognize a simple truth: a failed crime is not an insignificant one. A man who pulls the trigger and misses is no less guilty than the one who hits his mark. The intent is the same. The danger is the same. The crime is the same.

And 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.

But what we confront today-the Biden Administration's Arctic Frost scheme-is not a single act. 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. But even that comparison falls short. It is something far broader: an operation that aligned Democrats across all three branches of government.

The Biden Executive Branch-through the DOJ and FBI-wielded investigative power against political opponents. Democrat-appointed judges in the Judiciary-through warrants, secrecy orders, and deference-failed to serve as a meaningful check.

And members of the Legislative Branch-who should be the first line of oversight-chose instead to look the other way. And just like Watergate, these officials deserve to be investigated, tried, impeached, and brought to justice.

So, let's examine how this operation was carried out-step by step.

In early 2022, senior leadership within the Biden Department of Justice made the decision to open an investigation targeting President Trump and his campaign apparatus. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Chris Wray all personally approved the opening of the investigation.

On April 4, 2022, they signed a confidential memo bearing each of their signatures. 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-by partisan Democrats.

Then, in the fall, came nearly 200 subpoenas. We're talking about information pertaining to hundreds of entities and individuals. Over 400 Republican-aligned groups and individuals, including the most sensitive categories of personal data, had information gathered, retained, and, in some accounts, shared across offices.

Watergate was about a handful of files in a single office. This reached into tens of thousands of private communications-emails, records, and personal data. Toll records, bank records, donor lists, law firm records, and other personal files relating to every major conservative organization were subpoenaed:

Donald Trump's campaign, the RNC, the Conservative Partnership Institute, Save America PAC, America First Policy Institute, and even MyPillow. Watergate broke into an office. Arctic Frost reached into the private lives of thousands of Americans.

Meanwhile, conservative leaders found themselves equally violated. The Biden Administration sought the phone records of nearly 20% of Republicans in the Senate, including myself.

Without our knowledge, the FBI took our cellphone data, including information about with whom we were talking, how long we were talking, and from where we were calling. Toll records are not trivial-they are a map of your life, giving insight into your relationships, your movements, and your patterns.

Such invasive subpoenas were granted by Judge Boasberg, a Democrat-appointed judge, on the premise that any one of us-as duly elected United States Senators-might destroy evidence, tamper with witnesses, or obstruct justice.

Recently, even more troubling facts have continued to emerge. Biden's DOJ subpoenaed the toll records of now-FBI Director Kash Patel and now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Both were, at the time, private citizens and key members of President Trump's 2024 election campaign. Now imagine the reverse.

Imagine, for one moment, that President Trump's Department of Justice had secretly obtained the phone records of Senator Schumer-and of nearly 20 percent of Senate Democrats-without their knowledge.

Imagine if a Republican Attorney General, a Republican FBI Director, and a Republican-appointed judge had all signed off on a covert effort to sweep up the communications, location data, and call histories of every Democrat-affiliated organization and individual in the U.S.

Would anyone in this room call that routine? Would Democrats call that normal law enforcement activity? Would the press shrug its shoulders? Of course not. There would be wall-to-wall outrage. There would be cries of authoritarianism. There would be emergency hearings, demands for resignations, and talk of impeachment before the sun went down.

Arctic Frost is the culmination of a gross pattern of abuse of power by Democrats. In 2016, Obama's FBI began spying on the Trump campaign just a month before Election Day.

In 2020, Biden's FBI met with Senators Johnson and Grassley in an effort to throw off their investigation into the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, calling the laptop "disinformation"-a claim we now know is false.

For years, Democrats have exhibited a pattern of abusing public 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 administration-Republican or Democrat-has any business turning the surveillance powers of the federal government against its political opposition.

Fifty years ago, this nation was confronted with an abuse of power-and it responded not with indifference, but with accountability. We were tested then. We are being tested again now. The question before us is simple: Will we uphold the same standard-or abandon it?