Presidential Pardons Needed For Electors Persecuted By FBI

The release last week by the U.S. House and U.S. Senate Judiciary Committees of more than 2,000 pages of FBI documents reveals the enormity of the Biden administration’s determination to persecute and prosecute President Donald Trump, his political allies and supporters, the Republican Party, and literally hundreds of conservative political operatives, leaders, organizations, and even media entities. The Biden administration presided over an unimaginably aggressive political witch hunt that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and burdened thousands of his supporters with untold millions of dollars in legal fees and other costs.

The Biden administration’s actions were the most horrific abuse of U.S. federal government power against innocent American citizens in the history of this country. Biden’s was the most partisan and corrupt presidential administration ever to occupy the hallowed halls of the White House and the Department of Justice. The Biden administration turned the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the Stasi of the Democratic Party and used it to try to vanquish their political opponents, not at the ballot box, but through lawyers, courts, and jail cells. 

There is much to unpack with the documents released last week, and we will learn more in time. But while we are waiting for more information, there is one group of people who are under criminal indictment at this very moment and who should be pardoned today by President Trump. 

The criminal charges brought against Trump and his electors (and others) in five states were the focus and the pretext for the vast Biden administration conspiracy to destroy Trump and anyone close to him. It is time to end the lawfare against them. Every person charged in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin must be permanently freed from their criminal charges’ nightmare.

What we learned last week is that the Arctic Frost was built around the Trump electors, supposedly the gravamen of the state criminal charges. But these are not independent proceedings. Absent Arctic Frost, there would likely have been no state proceedings. Arctic Frost was initiated to criminalize the Trump 2020 presidential electors’ actions in signing elector certificates for President Trump — the Biden DOJ was intent upon making sure those electors were punished. 

Legal Precedent for Electors’ Actions

Remember, the slates of Trump electors were acting on advice of counsel (so, of course, the Biden DOJ decided to prosecute the lawyers also). The lawyers were acting in keeping with the legal precedent established in 1960, when the Hawaii electors were initially awarded to Richard Nixon, who was running against John F. Kennedy.

The Kennedy campaign challenged the results and, pending the outcome of the case, the Kennedy electors met and cast their votes for Kennedy, and forwarded their Kennedy elector certificates to Washington. Ultimately, Kennedy prevailed in his legal contest and the judge noted in the ruling that had the Kennedy electors not met and preserved their electoral votes for Kennedy, winning the election contest would have been meaningless as the electoral votes for Nixon would be all that Congress would be able to count. 

Not Truly State Proceedings

The so-called state criminal proceedings involving Trump electors filed by Democrat state attorneys general in Arizona (Kris Mayes), Nevada (Aaron Ford), Michigan (Dana Nessel), and Wisconsin (Josh Kaul), and the now disgraced Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia, are not truly state proceedings. Every one of the indictments stemmed from the Arctic Frost investigations conducted by the Biden FBI and DOJ, and the Democrat prosecutors acted at the behest of the Biden DOJ in bringing the fake criminal charges against Trump and his electors, lawyers, and supporters.

The state proceedings are simply proxies for what had been intended by the Biden DOJ to be federal charges filed in Washington, D.C. — the most partisan Democratic jury and judge pool in America.

We will hopefully learn when, how, and why the decision was made by the Biden DOJ to delegate the actual prosecutions to willing partisan Democrat AGs in the four states and the partisan Willis in Atlanta.  

The memorandum from FBI Director Christopher Wray to Attorney General Merrick Garland to start the Biden conspiracy against Trump focused on the Trump electors. Wray wrote the following to Garland:

[Washington Field Office] WFO seeks to open this SIM [Sensitive Investigative Matter] full investigation based on evidence that presents specific and articulable facts that individuals, both known and unknown, engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s certification of the Electoral College on January 6, 2020, including through the submission of fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes to the United States Government.

Garland signed his approval to commence the investigation on April 5, 2022, and the investigation was officially opened by the FBI’s Washington Field Office on April 13, 2022, which named the investigation “Arctic Frost.” The facts and statutory predication for the investigation were described as “federal violations”:

By conspiring, attempting to submit, and/or submitting allegedly fraudulent elector certificates, subjects, both known and unknown, may have violated one or more of the following federal statutes of which the FBI has enforcement responsibility: Attempt or conspiracy to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the certification of the Electoral College vote (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) and (k)), Obstruction of certain proceedings (18 U.S.C. § 1505), Falsification of records (18 U.S.C. § 1519), Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371), Aiding and abetting (18 U.S.C. § 2), Mail Fraud (18 U.S.C § 1341), Seditious Conspiracy (18 U.S.C § 2384).

There are specific predication requirements under FBI and DOJ procedures to open a Sensitive Investigative Matter, as described in the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide: 

Unlike preliminary investigations (which require only an allegation of a possible crime) or assessments (which need no factual predicate), SIMs demand a strong, documented factual basis. This includes evidence reasonably indicating the existence of a federal crime, such as obstruction of justice, corruption, or threats to national security.

The “predication” for Arctic Frost was a “federal crime,” listing a number of generic federal statutes, but completely ignoring the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (Tit. 3 U.S.C. §§ 5–18), which is the federal law governing the process by which presidential elector votes are transmitted and counted, as well as the process for members of the U.S. House and Senate to object to any state’s electoral votes. The venue for Arctic Frost was identified in the April 13, 2022, memo as Washington, D.C.: 

VENUE:   Although relevant activity occurred in multiple states andjurisdictions, the allegedly fraudulent certificates were mailed to Washington, DC and were received by NARA in Washington, DC. Additionally, Washington, DC is the location where the effects ofthe criminal activity were felt.

Arctic Frost was now officially underway, “predicated” on the alleged violation of federal law by the President and Trump electors in five states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, according to the Chris Wray memorandum.

How exactly did that original “predication” related to the Trump electors result in hundreds of FBI subpoenas for the phone, financial and credit reports, and other records of Republican committees, consultants, vendors, and employees, individual conservatives, conservative groups, political operatives and leaders, and eight senators? Clearly, SIM rules were ignored as Arctic Frost moved forward. 

How did the federal violations outlined in the Wray memo become state indictments of President Trump and his electors and other loyalists? Willis charged not only the president and his electors, but Trump attorneys, supporters, and other random people. Only in Michigan and Nevada were just the electors charged, and the Michigan judge dismissed the charges against the electors in September, ruling that the electors had been exercising their First Amendment rights and civic duty, and no crimes had been committed.

In Arizona, Attorney General Mayes charged the Trump electors, plus Trump attorneys and Christina Bobb, who had nothing to do with Arizona but was charged anyway. In Wisconsin, Democrat Attorney General Kaul filed criminal charges against two Trump attorneys and one long-time Republican political operative — but not the electors. In Nevada, Democrat Attorney General Ford filed criminal charges against the six 2020 Republican electors in December 2023, after having twice announced earlier that year that there was no state authority to bring such charges. There are going to be records in the White House and DOJ archives of that change of heart.

No State Authority

Clearly, the electors were — as described by the Arctic Frost documents — acting under federal, not state law. The U.S. Constitution created the presidential electors and the federal Electoral Count Act controls the proceedings by which the electors conduct their federal responsibilities. Nevada Attorney General Ford’s initial public statements in May and September of 2023 were spot on: there is no state authority to criminally charge the Trump presidential electors.

We can reach only one conclusion: These are not true state charges, these are not state actors, and the entire scheme to concoct some odd collection of purported violations of state law are a nullity. President Trump can and should pardon every person charged in each of the “state” proceedings. The state law violations are wholly fabricated by the Biden administration to punish and prosecute President Trump and his electors, lawyers, and supporters.

Actions to be Taken Now

There will be more revealed in the coming months, but there are actions that need to happen now. One, President Trump should immediately pardon every person indicted by these partisan Democrat prosecutors who were mere proxies and puppets for the Biden administration’s vast conspiracy to destroy those closest to Trump. President Trump should also order a search of the White House archives and visitor logs to locate all communications, meetings, and documents related to these four Democrat attorneys general and any additional documents about Willis’ interactions with the Biden White House.

Attorney General Pam Bondi should immediately order a complete review of every DOJ document of communications with or regarding Willis, Kaul, Mayes, Nessel, and Ford. And include Norm Eisen in those searches as he was very engaged and involved in promoting the state charges theory. The American people need to know who at DOJ was responsible for coordinating with the state Democrat prosecutors to bring charges against the Trump defendants. (Bondi should also file a writ of habeas corpus to free Tina Peters from the hideous jail sentence imposed on her by partisan Democrats in Colorado. It’s not totally on point with the electors but it needs to be done.)

Kash Patel should release the unredacted versions of documents given to the House Judiciary Committee last week to reveal the names of the Stasi FBI agents who participated in the anti-American investigations of the MAGA movement. Congress must move quickly to get as much information from the FBI, the DOJ, and other agencies to learn the extent of the Biden DOJ’s involvement with the state criminal proceedings.

It started with the Trump electors and just metastasized from there. 

Pardoning every person criminally charged for their loyalty to President Trump is a good place to start making things right.   

Cleta Mitchell is the senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, one of many conservative organizations subjected to Arctic Frost and its myriad abuses.