Kash Patel fires FBI agents involved in tracking Republican senators’ phone calls

FBI Director Kash Patel has fired agents involved in tracking the phone calls of eight Republican senators and a congressman as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump.

Communications files belonging to Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (SC), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Ron Johnson (WI), Josh Hawley (MO), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Bill Hagerty (TN), Dan Sullivan (AK), Tommy Tuberville (AL), and Rep. Mike Kelly (PA) were released to Smith’s “Arctic Frost” team after subpoenaed major phone companies in 2023, Breitbart News reported.

This fact was unknown to the public until this week, with Patel claiming to have discovered the files hidden in a “safe” placed in a “safe” in a “cyber location where no one can see or search for these files.”

“You put it in there when you want to hide it from the world, and that requires permission from the attorney general and the director of the FBI,” Patel said in an interview Tuesday on Fox News. “So not only did they arm these law enforcement agencies, but when we got there, and when I got there as director of the FBI, because of my experience with Russiagate, I knew where to look and what rooms to open and what doors to break down, and that’s what we did.”

“We found this information to expose the politicization of Jack Smith and the former Department of Justice,” he added, before revealing that he fired the agents who facilitated secret investigations into US lawmakers:

I mean, think about it, eight sitting U.S. senators. Phone records were collected and subpoenaed as part of the grand jury process, then they were buried and locked up. It was the hope that no one would find him. So we’re just scratching the surface, but accountability is coming. You’re damn right. I fired those agents. You’re damn right. I blew up CR-15, the public corruption squad that was leading the militarization of the Washington Field Office. We are just warming up, but we are carrying out our investigations on the ground. We find every person involved. We won’t leave a single room locked.

Hawley, one of the senators whose phone calls were tracked by the Biden administration’s Justice Department, called Smith’s subpoena “an abuse of power beyond Watergate, beyond J. Edgar Hoover, an abuse that directly undermines the Constitution, the separation of powers and the First Amendment.”

“We need a full investigation into everyone involved: who knew about it, who ordered it, and who approved it. Everyone who violated the law must be prosecuted. The way to save the country is to restore the rule of law,” the senator wrote on X.

The US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) opened an investigation into Smith in August, which may have illegally targeted Trump, Breitbart News reported.

Olivia Rondeau is a political reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find it on X/Twitter And Instagram.