The January 6 Committee surveillance operation went far beyond anything the public knew about.
Republicans are now discovering the sheer scale of what Democrats collected on their political opponents.
And Liz Cheney’s January 6 Committee used one surveillance tool that has Republicans up in arms.
Kinzinger offered 30 million phone records to FBI on election eve
The Democrat-run January 6 Committee amassed a staggering database of 30 million Trump supporters’ call records, attempting to link the Trump supporters to the White House — then former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (RINO-IL) attempted to deliver the entire trove to the FBI mere weeks before the 2024 presidential election.¹
Kinzinger contacted the FBI in late 2023 with an offer to turn over the entire surveillance database — no warrant necessary — as documented in an FBI memorandum that Just the News obtained.²
According to the memo, former Rep. Denver Riggleman — who left the Republican Party and subsequently joined Hunter Biden’s defense team — had employed congressional subpoenas to acquire toll records that captured White House phone numbers.³
The FBI documented that Kinzinger appeared enthusiastic about assisting the bureau, noting congressional investigators remained uncertain about how to handle their enormous database.⁴
The timing couldn’t be more suspicious — December 2023, with the first presidential primaries just weeks away and Donald Trump surging in the polls.
Kinzinger had already left Congress by then, and the January 6 Committee had ended its investigation.
But he still wanted the FBI to have access to what amounted to a political surveillance operation targeting thousands of Republicans and Trump associates.
President Trump blasted the revelations on Truth Social, posting "So terrible!" after the FBI memo came to light.⁵
RINO Liz Cheney’s committee hired Riggleman to build surveillance operation
Denver Riggleman ran the January 6 Committee’s data-driven surveillance operation as senior technical adviser, leveraging his background as an Air Force intelligence officer and National Security Agency contractor.⁶
Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) personally recommended Riggleman for the position — partly for his political experience, but mostly for his technical expertise in data intelligence.⁷
"I think Liz and some of the other people recognized, ‘He does know how Congress works, he knows how the political system works: He was in the Freedom Caucus, but he also has a background in data intelligence,’" Riggleman told CBS News.⁸
In his 2022 book "The Breach," Riggleman detailed how he assembled a small team to comb through what he initially estimated as 20 million lines of data — including emails, social media posts, phone records, and text messages.⁹
"Part of the work I oversaw on the committee was the painstaking process of matching phone numbers to names, utilizing powerful law enforcement databases and other clues as we could find them," Riggleman wrote.¹⁰
But the actual scale was even bigger than Riggleman’s book revealed.
Kinzinger told the FBI the data collection totaled roughly 30 million lines — significantly larger than what Cheney’s committee had publicly acknowledged.¹¹
Riggleman’s team mapped the Trump campaign and family members, individuals who attended the rally, those facing federal prosecution, members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers organizations, plus state-level politicians and electors.¹²
His analysis generated complex visual displays that Riggleman dubbed "the monster" — charts revealing tens of thousands of calls and contacts flowing among and between these networks.¹³
The investigation captured every phone call connecting at least a dozen Members of Congress, approximately 100 Trump associates, all communications from groups like Turning Point USA, and every White House call — accumulating over 30 million lines documenting Republican communications and locations.¹⁴
Cheney’s committee surveillance exceeded constitutional limits
Mike Howell, president of the conservative Oversight Project, called the data collection an "absolute violation of civil rights that far exceeded anything it ever purported to be investigating."¹⁵
"They abused their authority to engage in a political mapping exercise to surveil their political opponents," Howell told Just the News.¹⁶
The surveillance operation raises serious constitutional questions about congressional power and the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Congressional committees possess subpoena authority, but the January 6 Committee discovered telecommunications providers would comply with demands for private records without pushback — effectively granting Democrats warrantless access to Republican communications.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article 3 Project, said the episode could test the constitutional limits of congressional immunity and whether the committee’s actions violated Americans’ civil rights.¹⁷
The information remained in digital format that allowed for searching, visualization, storage, and analysis — creating what amounted to a queryable repository of Republican private communications and connections.¹⁸
Arctic Frost investigation targeted Republican senators
The surveillance wasn’t limited to the January 6 Committee’s operation.
FBI Director Kash Patel recently uncovered that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s "Arctic Frost" investigation obtained toll records for eight Republican senators and one congressman as part of the January 6 probe.¹⁹
The targeted lawmakers were U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA).¹⁹
The FBI acquired phone records from January 4 through January 7, 2021, capturing when calls occurred, who was contacted, how long conversations lasted, and approximate locations — though not actual conversation content.²⁰
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) uncovered the damning FBI document within a Prohibited Access file — a filing system the bureau employs to restrict document access by making certain files invisible to most FBI personnel.²¹
"Based on the evidence to-date, Arctic Frost and related weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate," Grassley stated.²²
Patel posted on X: "We recently uncovered proof that phone records of U.S. lawmakers were seized for political purposes. That abuse of power ends now."²³
The FBI terminated at least two special agents involved in Jack Smith’s investigation after Patel exposed the surveillance targeting congressional Republicans.²⁴
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) disclosed this wasn’t his first encounter with federal targeting — during the Obama administration, the Foreign Influence Task Force had approached him and Grassley attempting to downplay the Hunter Biden laptop as insignificant.²⁵
Grassley demands accountability from telecommunications companies
Grassley dispatched letters to four major telecommunications providers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Lumen — demanding they furnish Congress with all records they surrendered to Jack Smith during his investigation of President Trump.²⁶
The chairman additionally sent letters to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Archives and Records Administration, and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia seeking disclosure of what materials they provided to Smith.²⁷
Sixteen additional Republican senators and Rep. Mike Kelly co-signed Grassley’s letters, including Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Thom Tillis (R-NC), John Kennedy (R-LA), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Ashley Moody (R-FL).²⁸
The investigation is uncovering a pattern of weaponized surveillance targeting Republicans across multiple fronts — from the January 6 Committee’s massive data dragnet to Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost operation to earlier Obama-era targeting.
This represents a coordinated campaign by Democrat-controlled federal law enforcement to map, monitor, and surveil Republican political networks employing the full arsenal of government surveillance capabilities.
The American people deserve to know the complete scope of this political spying operation — and who granted authorization to transform federal law enforcement into an opposition research apparatus targeting Donald Trump and his supporters.
¹ Just the News, "Congress collected 30 million lines of phone data in Trump J6 probe, raising civil liberty concerns," October 14, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ World Tribune, "Phone surveillance data on Trump supporters by J6 investigators was offered to FBI on election eve," October 15, 2025.
⁵ WJBC AM 1230, "Report: Jan. 6 Panel Gave GOP Phone Data to FBI," October 15, 2025.
⁶ CBS News, "Inside the January 6 committee with former senior technical adviser Denver Riggleman," September 26, 2022.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ World Tribune, "Phone surveillance data on Trump supporters by J6 investigators was offered to FBI on election eve," October 15, 2025.
⁹ Just the News, "Congress collected 30 million lines of phone data in Trump J6 probe, raising civil liberty concerns," October 14, 2025.
¹⁰ CBS News, "Inside the January 6 committee with former senior technical adviser Denver Riggleman," September 26, 2022.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Tennessee Star, "Congress Collected 30 Million Lines of Phone Data in Trump J6 Probe, Raising Civil Liberty Concerns," October 15, 2025.
¹³ Just the News, "Congress collected 30 million lines of phone data in Trump J6 probe, raising civil liberty concerns," October 14, 2025.
¹⁴ Ibid.
¹⁵ WJBC AM 1230, "Report: Jan. 6 Panel Gave GOP Phone Data to FBI," October 15, 2025.
¹⁶ Tennessee Star, "Congress Collected 30 Million Lines of Phone Data in Trump J6 Probe, Raising Civil Liberty Concerns," October 15, 2025.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid.
¹⁹ Fox News, "Jack Smith tracked private communications, calls of nearly a dozen GOP senators during J6 probe, FBI says," October 6, 2025.
²⁰ CNN Politics, "Jack Smith investigation into January 6 obtained phone records of GOP lawmakers, Republicans say," October 6, 2025.
²¹ Senate Judiciary Committee, "Biden FBI Spied on Eight Republican Senators as Part of Arctic Frost Investigation, Grassley Oversight Reveals," October 6, 2025.
²² Ibid.
²³ Ibid.
²⁴ Newsweek, "Republican Says Jack Smith, FBI Violated ‘Personal Property’ in January 6 Probe," October 6, 2025.
²⁵ NBC News, "FBI fires special agents who worked on Jack Smith’s probe into Trump," October 8, 2025.
²⁶ Legal Insurrection, "FBI: Jack Smith Tracked Eight GOP Senators During Trump Investigation," October 6, 2025.
²⁷ Senate Judiciary Committee, "Grassley Demands Telecommunications Companies, Federal Entities Turn Over All Records Provided to Jack Smith," October 10, 2025.
²⁸ Ibid.
²⁹ Ibid.
