EXCLUSIVE: The Biden White House turned over government cellphones belonging to President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence to the FBI in May 2022 as part of a bureau probe into the aftermath of the 2020 election, tying Trump to that investigation without sufficient predication, Fox News Digital has learned.
The FBI did not need a warrant to physically obtain the government phones from the Biden White House.
But after acquiring the devices, agents began drafting a search warrant to extract the phones’ data, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital.
President Joe Biden, right, meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Nov. 13, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“The Biden White House played right along with the FBI’s ‘gotcha’ scheme against Trump,” a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital. “Biden’s Office of White House Counsel, under the leadership of Dana Remus and Jonathan Su, gave its blessing and accommodation for the FBI to physically obtain Trump and Pence’s phones in early May 2022. Weeks later, the FBI began drafting a search warrant to extract the phones’ data.”
Donald Trump and Mike Pence pose together on a stage. (Getty Images)
The phones were obtained and entered as evidence as part of the FBI’s original anti-Trump 2020 election investigation, which eventually was taken over by special counsel Jack Smith. That case was known inside the bureau as “Arctic Frost” and was opened April 13, 2022, by anti-Trump former FBI agent Timothy Thibault.
Thibault, according to whistleblowers, broke protocol and played a critical role in opening and advancing the bureau’s original investigation related to the 2020 election, tying Trump to the probe without sufficient predication. Thibault broke protocol by taking action to open the investigation and involve Trump despite being unauthorized to open criminal investigations in his role. Only special agents have the authority to open criminal investigations.
Thibault vowed to make the investigation “prioritized over all others in the Branch” and, at the time, commented that “it frankly took too long for us to open this (investigation),” according to documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in the U.S. Capitol Sept. 24, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
The FBI, by late April 2022, began scheduling more than a dozen interviews for the investigation in coordination with 13 FBI field offices across the nation, Fox News Digital has learned.
The revelations come from legally protected whistleblower disclosures provided to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis. Fox News Digital reviewed the disclosures.
Grassley and Johnson sent the whistleblower disclosures and records to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel late Thursday.
“The new records we are making public point to an aggressive investigation run by anti-Trump agents and prosecutors intent on using every resource available to pursue Trump and his supporters,” Grassley and Johnson wrote.
The first record relating to the Trump and Pence phones was dated April 25, 2022, and noted: “DOJ and FBI were informed that government-issued cellphones that purportedly previously belonged to former Vice President Mike Pence and former President Donald J. Trump were in the possession of individuals at the White House. DOJ is currently conducting analysis regarding the FBI taking possession of and processing the phones.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during a Senate Budget Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., March 12, 2024. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The records revealed that, on May 4, 2022, FBI agents took possession of the two phones belonging to Trump and Pence. The phones were entered into evidence and were not processed until search warrants were obtained, according to the record.
On that same date, FBI agents interviewed Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su. A follow-up letter requesting additional information regarding the phones was then sent from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C., to White House Counsel Dana Remus May 9, 2022.
Remus and Su declined to comment to Fox News Digital.
A representative for former President Joe Biden did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on whether he was aware of the situation.
Agents also sought to interview former Trump administration officials, including employees from the offices of the President and Vice President, DOJ and then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe is the CIA director in the second Trump administration.
“Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” Grassley and Johnson wrote to Bondi and Patel Thursday. “The American people deserve to know the complete extent of the corruption within the DOJ and FBI that led to the investigation into President Trump.”
Kash Patel, director of the FBI, speaks during a swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C., Feb. 21, 2025. (Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Grassley and Johnson said that they made the documents public “for purposes of public accountability and to provide specific examples of past behavior at your institutions that must not be repeated.”
“Quite simply, the public has a right to know what happened in Arctic Frost, and, based on what we’ve exposed to date, the American people deserve better from its law enforcement agencies.
“It is important that every individual at your agencies maintains the highest level of professionalism and does not allow political bias to motivate or guide their investigative work.”
Grassley and Johnson stressed that they “expect the production of all records related to the Arctic Frost investigation, including all internal records of investigative updates.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a news conference regarding immigration enforcement at the Justice Department Feb. 12, 2025, in Washington. (Ben Curtin/The Asssociated Press)
“In addition, we request data providing a true and complete breakdown of the total dollar amount spent on the Arctic Frost investigation before it was officially transferred to Jack Smith in November 2022,” they wrote. “Please also include information related to travel funds and hours spent on the investigation.”
Grassley and Johnson gave Bondi and Patel a deadline of March 27, 2025, to turn over all records.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told Fox News Digital the bureau is “in receipt of Chairman Grassley and Senator Johnson’s request.”
“As always per Director Patel’s directive, our team will work aggressively to comply with congressional requests,” Williamson told Fox News Digital.
As for Thibault, Fox News Digital exclusively reported in 2024 that he had been fired from the FBI after he allegedly violated the Hatch Act in his political posts on social media. Previous whistleblowers claimed Thibault had shown a “pattern of active public partisanship,” which likely affected investigations involving Trump and Hunter Biden.
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a former Justice Department official, as special counsel in November 2022.
Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ’s public integrity section, led the investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and whether the former president obstructed the federal government’s investigation into the matter.
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to members of the media at the U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Smith was also tasked with overseeing the investigation into whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote Jan. 6, 2021.
Smith charged Trump in both cases, but Trump pleaded not guilty.
The classified records case was dismissed in July 2024 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.
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Smith charged Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request.