The IRS went after Tea Party groups for having the wrong political beliefs – and nobody went to jail.
Jack Smith just took that playbook and ran it further than Lois Lerner ever dreamed.
What Republican Senators just uncovered proves Smith's dragnet went far deeper than any senator or party official.
The Arctic Frost Spreadsheet Nobody Was Supposed to See
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed that Jack Smith's special counsel operation collected personal data on 639,000 Republican voters and supporters – and that number includes ordinary Americans whose only crime was buying a red hat.
Not donors, not campaign officials, not anyone with a traceable connection to January 6 – people who bought a MAGA hat.
Grassley released two pages from an actual Smith spreadsheet – 158 people who purchased MAGA hats on a single day, November 16, 2020.
Each entry included the buyer's name, birth date, credit card number, and occupation.
Smith's team obtained this data by forcing GOP-aligned organizations to comply with subpoenas.
Grassley called it "incredibly invasive" and said there was no legitimate investigative reason Smith needed any of it.
Buying a MAGA hat is not a crime.
Smith's reach went back to 2005, pulling in not just active donors but everyday Republican voters who had no connection to anything he was investigating.
Smith also obtained the full Trump campaign merchandise catalog – everything from t-shirts to welcome mats – and lists of campaign personnel that Grassley said "potentially include campaign volunteers."
Operation Arctic Frost Was Never Just About January 6
The FBI codename for the investigation that preceded Smith's probe was "Arctic Frost" – and Grassley has made public nearly 2,200 pages of records proving the operation was never limited to Donald Trump.
Smith issued 197 subpoenas covering at least 430 Republican individuals and organizations.
He separately subpoenaed bank records from nearly 5,000 Americans.
Of the 639,000 individuals in those spreadsheets, 148,000 were donors – including people who gave as little as $1.
At the September 29 Senate Judiciary hearing, Grassley put it directly to Smith: "Did your Special Counsel operation obtain possession of donor data, to include financial information?"
Smith's answer: he couldn't recall.
Ted Cruz pressed him on the subpoena numbers – 197 issued, 430-plus Republican targets – and called the entire operation "a massive fishing expedition."
Smith replied: "I do not recall those numbers."
Grassley also disclosed that Smith's team obtained private communications from more than a dozen media outlets, including The Federalist. The outlet's CEO called it "part of Jack Smith's plot to get revenge against us."
Smith told Congress he didn't seek the contents of messages from members of Congress. His team obtained them anyway, culled from their exchanges with White House staff.
The man who built a surveillance apparatus targeting the entire Republican political universe – from U.S. senators down to MAGA hat buyers – claims he cannot remember building it.
Government Weaponization: Democrats Have Run This Playbook Before
Democrats ran this playbook before.
The IRS under Obama targeted Tea Party groups – delayed their nonprofit applications for years and buried them in document demands. Eric Holder's DOJ coordinated criminal charges against conservative groups.
Lois Lerner took the Fifth, the FBI knew about the targeting since 2011 and did nothing, and Obama called it "not even a smidgen of corruption."
Nobody went to jail.
Biden handed the same machinery to Merrick Garland's hand-picked special counsel and pointed it at all 639,000 of them – not politicians, not January 6 ringleaders, but small donors and Americans who bought a hat.
Democrats defended Smith at the September hearing – dismissed the entire investigation as "baseless conspiracy theories" and demanded Grassley apologize to Smith for being called a dirtbag.
Grassley's response: "The major embarrassment of the hearing was Democrats falling over themselves defending unlawful and unconstitutional actions by Jack Smith."
The Tea Party scandal at least targeted organizations.
Jack Smith went after every one of them for their political beliefs and their purchase history.
Smith built that database on retirees, small donors, and hat buyers – and Democrats are now demanding apologies from the men who caught him.
Grassley said the hearing is not the end of his investigation.
It had better not be.
Sources:
- Stephen Dinan, "Former special counsel's probe scooped up data on 639,000 Republican supporters," The Washington Times, October 14, 2026.
- "Grassley Questions Jack Smith at Senate Judiciary Oversight Hearing," Senate Judiciary Committee, September 29, 2026.
- "Jack Smith Dodges Questions About Spying on Republican Lawmakers," Washington Examiner, September 29, 2026.
- "Watch Live: Disgraced Jack Smith Faces Lion's Den Over Trump Witch Hunt Probe," The Daily Wire, September 29, 2026.
- "Grassley: FBI Arctic Frost Probe Collected GOP Lawmaker Call Logs, 197 Subpoenas Revealed," Fox News, October 2025.
- "Grassley to Senate Judiciary Democrats: Join My Efforts to Hold Jack Smith Accountable," Senate Judiciary Committee, October 2026.
- Sean Davis, "Jack Smith Seized Nearly 5,000 Checks Written By Trump Donors," The Federalist, September 29, 2026.
