WATCH: Former DOJ’s seizure of Trump phone records an ‘egregious overreach’

By Morgan Sweeney
The Center Square

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X Tuesday that the FBI’s investigation into whether President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election included a subpoena for his private phone records.

The Department of Justice, under former President Joe Biden, also seized Trump’s government-issued phone.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wasn’t able to confirm in a Tuesday press briefing whether the Biden DOJ did acquire the president’s private phone records, but she condemned its attempt to do so.

“I think this is just further evidence of the egregious overreach and weaponization of government that took place under the previous White House against then former president and now President Donald J Trump,” Leavitt told reporters. “It was a clear effort by the Biden White House and the Biden DOJ to go after the president, and this is just further evidence of that.”

Bondi, in her social media post, called the former administration’s seizure of Trump’s government-issued phone “unprecedented.”

“The Biden Administration turned over President Trump’s phone to Special Counsel – an UNPRECEDENTED action,” Bondi wrote. “In addition, Special Counsel subpoenaed all of President Trump’s PERSONAL phone records.”

“We can never again allow this kind of government weaponization in America,” she added.

Bondi said she had submitted the current FBI’s findings to the members of Congress investigating what has become known as Operation Arctic Frost.

Arctic Frost began in 2022 as an investigation into whether Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election through a “false electors scheme.” More recently, congressional hearings have revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith issued subpoenas for at least 430 named Republican individuals or entities and the investigation also examined the call logs of some Republican members of Congress.

Some Republican lawmakers have said what has been uncovered about Arctic Frost is a “scandal bigger than Watergate,” which led to the downfall of the late President Richard Nixon.