Artic Frost And Financial “Crimes”

Authored by Technofog via The Reactionary,

Thanks to releases by FBI Director Kash Patel and Senate Republicans (here and here and here), we are finally getting sunlight into the FBI’s overarching investigation of not only President Trump but of nearly everyone in his orbit – the investigation assigned the name “Artic Frost.”

The Artic Frost opening document, dated April 13, 2022, provides a number of potential statutory violations that justified its opening. Here is the exact text.

“By conspiring, attempting to submit, and/or submitting allegedly fraudulent elector certificates, subjects, both known and unknown, may have violated one or more of the following federal statutes of which the FBI has enforcement responsibility:

• Attempt or conspiracy to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the certification of the Electoral College vote (18 USC § 1512(c)(2) and (k)).

• Obstruction of certain proceedings (18 USC § 1505).

• Falsification of records (18 USC § 1519).

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 USC § 371).

• Mail Fraud (18 USC § 1341).

• Seditious Conspiracy (18 USC § 2384).”

Now, that April 13, 2022 document wasn’t the original Artic Frost opening communication. Rather, from the records that have been published, the original was dated March 22, 2022. And if you look into the alleged statutory violations (which we outlined above), the March 22, 2022 document omits “Mail Fraud.” That’s an important addition for the reasons we’ve outlined below.

By the time Artic Frost commenced, a related grand jury investigation had been opened “with federal law enforcement agencies on January 31, 2022.” Those other agencies were identified as the US Postal Inspection Service and the Investigative Unit of the Office of the Inspector General for the National Archives. The subjects of Artic Frost included: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (and those involved in the campaign); attorney John Eastman, who helped lead some of the challenges to the 2020 election; Rudy Giuliani; and Trump advisor (and campaign attorney) Boris Epshteyn. The subjects also included the electors – 60+ persons from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsing who were part of the election challenge efforts.

As we have known for a while, Artic Frost was expansive. Previous filings in Trump’s DC criminal case (which we discussed here) showed that discovery included hundreds of witnesses, 8.5 terabits of data, hundreds (if not thousands) hours of audio and video, and over 11.5 million pages of documents.

Now, thanks to releases from the FBI and Republicans in Congress, we have more details on the specifics of the investigation. It was sweeping, and included:

• Phone records from not only targets of the investigation – Trump, et al., but of Republican members of Congress (which we also covered).

• Search warrants for digital conduct.

• A full grand jury investigation of the alleged criminal activity.

What has been lost is also that the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO), back in October 2020, assessed that “the use of American Made Media Consultants (AMMC) as a clearinghouse for Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the Trump campaign) spending is likely vulnerable to campaign finance crimes by campaign-connected sub-vendors.”

This campaign finance investigation – which was opened by the FBI’s New York Field Office – stemmed from an AMMC member’s potential gambling activities, his efforts to allegedly evade federal $10,000 reporting requirements when cashing-in his winnings, and the alleged pay-off of a Senegalese government official. The FBI’s thought was that the party (the gambler) potentially used Trump campaign funds distributed through AMMC “for personal or unauthorized use.” It should be noted that the FBI’s October 2020 “Tactical Intelligence Report” made its assessment with “low confidence.”

In June 2022, the FBI re-assessed the financial investigation (or at least had renewed interest in the financial investigation), citing to the House January 6th Committee’s “investigation” into the Trump Campaign’s post-2020 election fundraising, which was promoted as the “Election Defense Fund.” See the FBI email below.

We mention campaign finance and the use of funds to challenge the 2020 election because of Senator Grassley’s recent release of 1700+ pages of grand jury subpoenas requesting financial records from a number of individuals and entities, including:

• Donald J. Trump for President

• Jeff Clark

• American Voting Rights Foundation (which helped fund the Arizona audit)

• Conservative Partnership Institute (which assists Republicans in training and educating staff, builds coalitions, and helps with staffing)

• A large number of vendors and contractors involved with the Trump Campaign

• Cyber Ninjas (who were involved in the Arizona election audit)

• Sidney Powell

• Individuals and attorneys who assisted with fundraising for, or distributing funds concerning, election audits.

• MyPillow

• Representation or legal fee agreements between fundraising committees and their attorneys

• Dan Scavino

• Mark Meadows

Some of these subpoenas were issued by the grand jury before Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel. But most of them were came after Smith’s November 18, 2022 appointment – some just days after.

It’s pretty clear what happened.

By April 2022 (at the latest), the Biden DOJ wasn’t just pursuing “election interference” charges against Trump, et al. They were going after conservative fundraising and groups promoting conservative causes, as well as the individuals associated with those groups and entities.

That’s why you see mail fraud – a statute used by federal authorities to charge fundraising-related crimes – in the April 2022 Artic Frost opening communication. (We’re fairly certain they also looked at wire fraud.) And through the use of the grand jury, the Biden Administration was able to reach every single group and individual that pursued truth in the 2020 presidential election.

But it’s not only that. The Biden Administration also targeted those groups formed after the 2020 election – such those groups who weren’t involved in “alternative electors” but who assisted and conducted audits.

The predicate for an expansive financial crimes investigation is not addressed in the Artic Frost opening communication. Nor is it addressed in Special Counsel Smith’s final report. It’s telling that a prosecutor as aggressive as Jack Smith found no financial crimes after receiving the records – an indication of just how weak the predicate was.

This wasn’t just about 2020. It was about 2024 and a plan to not only indict the former President and Republican frontrunner, but to kneecap his support and financial infrastructure.

It’s not like the FBI is immune to advancing conspiracy theories. The agency never learned its lesson from Crossfire Hurricane. In September 2022, there was this email from an agent with the Seattle Field Office that relayed “intelligence” from one of their sources regarding Ed Corrigan (bio here), the President and CEO of Conservative Partnership Institute. Corrigan is as harmless as they come – and here we have internal FBI documents discussing him being “pro-Putin and anti-Biden”, that he is engaged with Mark Meadows “in willful criminal activity”, that Corrigan has “properties at which he wants to build up infrastructure to train people for civil war”, and that Corrigan “has plans that are not good for the FBI.”

One of the key questions remaining is what the FBI did with that information – whether that source was trusted, and whether investigations were opened into Corrigan or Kushner based on that obviously false intelligence. We’ll see.