The FBI opened a formal investigation into several Republican members of Congress in January 2021, days after prosecutors handling the case privately called the allegations behind it "embarrassing," "appalling," and "completely incredible," according to internal government records obtained by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The records, which the Daily Caller News Foundation first reported, reveal text messages and emails between DOJ prosecutors who expressed deep skepticism about the claims that launched the probe, then pressed ahead anyway. The investigation, code-named "Rampart Twelve," targeted Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and former Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama.

Grassley plans to present the documents during a Senate hearing on the broader "Arctic Frost" investigation Tuesday morning. Three Republican senators have already gone on record calling the probe a politically motivated fishing expedition against the American right.

What the prosecutors said, and what they did next

The timeline laid out in the records is damning on its own terms. On January 12, 2021, then-Democratic New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill alleged in a Facebook Live broadcast that some members of Congress had led "reconnaissance" tours to map out the Capitol ahead of January 6. More than 30 House Democrats joined her in sending a letter to Capitol security officials seeking information about "suspicious" visitors on January 5.

By January 13, DOJ prosecutor Molly Gaston was texting her colleague J.P. Cooney about Sherrill's claims. The tone was not one of urgency or alarm. Gaston wrote that Sherrill "has such important groundbreaking information that she has agreed to talk to amanda...friday." Cooney's response was blunt. He called Sherrill's handling of the situation "embarrassing" and "appalling," and said it "makes her allegations completely incredible."

Three days later, on January 16, Cooney reviewed Capitol video footage of Boebert and texted Gaston again. He described seeing "a maga hat group about a minute behind her but it's a family, with kids." His assessment: "it's weird," but "does not look suspicious."

Yet six days after that, on January 22, 2021, Cooney sent an email formally opening the preliminary investigation. His stated justification: "Under the circumstances, the only responsible course was to open a preliminary investigation, both to swiftly determine the legitimacy of the allegations and to ensure a full written record of the FBI's steps."

From skepticism to subpoenas

The gap between what prosecutors said privately and what they did officially is the core of the controversy. Cooney himself had dismissed the foundational allegations as lacking credibility. But his own texts also show him pivoting toward a different theory.

"i'm telling you though, this tour/map thing has legs," Cooney wrote. "this makes perfect sense to me... proving the member's intent might be impossible but i am fairly confident that we are going to put a map or some other information relevant to coordinated activity in the hands of an extremist group, and trace it back to a congressional office."

That confidence apparently drove the investigation forward for nearly a year. The FBI obtained toll records for both Boebert and Gosar. The probe also examined a staffer's claim that he heard two men say, "I think Gosar will let us in." And it reviewed claims by "Stop the Steal" rally organizer Ali Alexander, who said he had developed a plan with Brooks, Gosar, and Biggs to put "maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting."

Cooney also reassured former FBI agent Timothy Thibault that rules for opening "sensitive investigations" during the 2020 election cycle did not apply. His reasoning: the targeted members were not "declared candidates" for Congress, and there was "no risk that public exposure of the preliminary investigation could influence an impending federal election."

By December 2021, a Washington Field Office FBI agent sought approval to interview Boebert and Gosar directly, with "appropriate coordination with DC USAO." That request referenced a "June memo" outlining a proposed course of action. But in January 2022, Thibault told the agent that "direction from FBIHQ is to close the case."

The investigation ended. No charges were filed. The records do not indicate that any interviews of the targeted members took place.

A pattern broader than one probe

Rampart Twelve did not exist in isolation. It fed into a much larger Biden-era Justice Department operation that Republicans now say amounted to political surveillance of their party. The broader investigation, known as "Arctic Frost," eventually became the foundation for former Special Counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election case against President Donald Trump. Both Gaston and Cooney went on to become integral parts of Smith's team after his appointment in 2022.

That career trajectory is central to the Republican case. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said the messages "show Justice Department attorneys sought to investigate republicans no matter how spurious the allegation." He added pointedly: "Smith eventually hired both J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston, allowing them to continue their partisan work."

The scale of Arctic Frost has come into sharper focus in recent months. Grassley previously disclosed that toll records for 20 current or former Republican members of Congress were subpoenaed as part of the probe. The New York Post reported that Grassley released FBI records showing Smith's team issued 197 subpoenas to 34 individuals and 163 businesses, seeking records related to more than 430 individuals and organizations, the vast majority of them Republican.

National Review reported that a September 2023 FBI document indicated the bureau conducted "toll analysis" on eight Republican senators and Rep. Mike Kelly as part of Arctic Frost. FBI Director Kash Patel responded to those revelations: "We recently uncovered proof that phone records of U.S. lawmakers were seized for political purposes. That abuse of power ends now."

Grassley himself has drawn a stark comparison, stating: "Based on the evidence to-date, Arctic Frost and related weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate."

Oversight under surveillance

One of the more troubling dimensions involves timing. Just The News reported that Smith subpoenaed phone records of multiple Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Grassley, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, former Rep. Louie Gohmert, and Rep. Jim Jordan, while some of those same lawmakers were actively conducting oversight of the FBI and DOJ. Jordan's subpoena, issued April 25, 2022, reportedly sought phone data from January 1, 2020 through that date, reaching well beyond the January 6 timeframe.

Former Rep. Gohmert told the John Solomon Reports podcast: "They were trying to spy on us to see what we were doing. And also, I think they were looking for anything that they could use to come after us, or hold over our heads, because, you know, you can intimidate the people that are coming after you."

That accusation, that the Justice Department used its investigative tools to monitor the very lawmakers overseeing it, raises separation-of-powers questions that go beyond any single probe. The pattern of alleged Biden-era coordination between the White House and DOJ has been a recurring theme in Republican oversight efforts.

AP News reported that in 2023 the FBI analyzed phone records of more than half a dozen Republican lawmakers as part of its January 6 investigation, with records showing call dates and times but not call contents. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he had "grave concerns" and referred to an "outrageous abuse of power and weaponization of the government."

Three phone company executives have already testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about why they turned over records of multiple Republican members of Congress in response to secret subpoenas from Smith. The scope of those disclosures continues to widen.

What the senators are saying

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt did not mince words in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

"These bombshell documents reveal that bad actors at the highest levels of our government and intelligence agencies targeted broad swaths of the America Right and sitting members of Congress with no evidence of wrongdoing. This fishing expedition was nothing more than a political agenda."

Schmitt added: "Finally under the leadership of Chairman Grassley, and the work of this committee, we are shining a light on this corruption that the Democrats ignored under Biden, and we will not stop until there is full accountability for those involved."

Grassley framed the broader stakes in equally direct terms. He called Rampart Twelve "yet another example in which Republicans were unfairly targeted and secretly subjected to an invasive investigation by the Biden DOJ and FBI." He credited whistleblowers for bringing the records to light.

"If not for my investigative work and brave whistleblowers, we wouldn't know about FBI agents' and DOJ prosecutors' disgraceful efforts to try and destroy Republicans. My Democrat colleagues want to ignore these facts and evidence and defend the fired officials who participated in Biden's lawfare. I'll continue working to expose the widespread constitutional abuses that occurred under the Biden administration, because transparency brings accountability."

Johnson pledged to continue his own parallel oversight: "My oversight efforts will continue to expose what was occurring in Jack Smith's office."

The ethics complaint that went nowhere

House Republicans did not wait for whistleblower records to push back. In May 2021, they filed an ethics complaint against the Democrats who claimed, "without evidence," in the complaint's framing, that Republican members had led "reconnaissance" tours of the Capitol. The Washington Examiner noted that internal DOJ messages showed prosecutors quickly doubted Sherrill's allegations even as the probe continued and the FBI kept the investigation open until January 2022.

Gaston herself offered a telling aside in one of her January 13 texts. After discussing Sherrill's claims, she wrote: "i hate politicians." She then corrected herself: "hate is the wrong word. I'm disillusioned by them."

The disillusionment, evidently, did not extend to shutting down the investigation those politicians' claims had set in motion. The broader pattern of Biden-era DOJ conduct now facing legal and congressional scrutiny continues to grow.

Open questions

Several important gaps remain. The records do not make clear what evidence beyond Sherrill's claims, the staffer's account, and Alexander's statements justified keeping the probe open for nearly a year. The "June memo" referenced in the December 2021 request to interview Boebert and Gosar has not been publicly described. And it remains unclear whether the targeted members were ever formally notified of the investigation while it was active.

The question of who at FBI headquarters ordered the case closed in January 2022, and why at that particular moment, also remains unanswered. Thibault relayed the directive, but the records as described do not identify who above him made the call.

Meanwhile, ongoing FBI investigations into the conduct of former intelligence officials during the Trump years suggest the reckoning over politicized federal law enforcement is far from over.

When prosecutors privately call the allegations behind an investigation "completely incredible", and then open the investigation anyway, the word for that isn't diligence. It's something the American public has every right to demand answers about.