New and damning evidence has just been released that further exposed the disturbing extent of the weaponization of the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden to target his political opponents.

A recently uncovered secret FBI document revealed that eight Republican senators and one Republican congressman had their phone records seized and scrutinized by former Special Counsel Jack Smith as part of his anti-Trump January 6 Capitol riot investigation, according to National Review.

The astonishing revelation highlights the rank hypocrisy of evidence-free Democratic accusations that President Donald Trump's administration is now doing what multiple FBI documents and whistleblowers have proven his predecessor did previously to his partisan rivals.

GOP lawmakers' phone records seized

On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a 2023 FBI document that revealed the Bureau's targeting of personal cell phone records for eight Republican senators and one Republican congressman as part of an anti-Trump investigation known as Operation Arctic Frost.

According to the document, the FBI sought and obtained data -- including the time, duration, location, and recipients of calls made, but not the calls' contents -- of the targeted lawmakers between January 4-7, 2021, with that information ultimately being hidden away in a so-called Prohibited Access File that the vast majority of FBI agents were unable to access.

The GOP legislators targeted included Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) -- all of whom were purportedly linked to President Trump's alleged effort to overthrow the result of the 2020 election.

"Based on the evidence to date, Arctic Frost and related weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate," Grassley said in a statement.

"What I’ve uncovered today is disturbing and outrageous political conduct by the Biden FBI," the Iowa senator added. "The FBI’s actions were an unconstitutional breach, and Attorney General [Pam] Bondi and [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel need to hold accountable those involved in this serious wrongdoing."

Thanks for the exposure, but what about arrests and prosecutions

In response to the bombshell revelation, FBI Director 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," he added. "Under my leadership, the FBI will deliver truth and accountability, and never again be weaponized against the American people."

However, while the commenters to Patel's post expressed their appreciation for his efforts to expose the wrongful politicization of the justice system under the Biden administration, the overwhelming sentiment was that the mere exposure of wrongdoing was worthless unless it was swiftly followed by justifiable arrests and prosecutions for clear violations of federal laws.

Biden investigated his political opponents

According to Sen. Grassley's press release, the targeting of Republican lawmakers' phones was just the latest egregious example of the politically weaponized nature of the FBI's Arctic Frost investigation, which began in mid-2022 and later served as the basis for ex-Special Counsel Smith's partisan prosecution of then-former President Trump that was launched in November 2022.

Grassley's Judiciary Committee previously revealed in March that the investigation had, with the help of the Biden White House, obtained not just the records but the actual government-issued cell phones -- and all of the data therein -- previously used by Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and other Trump administration officials.

The senator also announced in a September hearing that documents and whistleblowers showed that Biden's FBI also opened partisan probes of 92 Republican groups and individuals, including the Republican National Committee, the Republican Attorneys General Association, numerous Trump-linked organizations, and many conservative groups, such as the late Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA, among others.