Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has called on the House to impeach U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg for helping the FBI obtain the phone records of Republican lawmakers during the Biden administration.
In a blistering attack at a news conference this week covering the latest revelations about the bureau’s so-called Arctic Frost probe, the Texas senator went after the Washington, DC, chief judge and 2011 Obama appointee, asking, “Who is Boasberg? Boasberg is that radical leftist judge who is out of control.”
Cruz mentioned recent revelations that the FBI reportedly targeted Republican lawmakers’ personal phones for “tolling data” as part of Arctic Frost. That data showed when and to whom calls were made in the days on and around the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capital riot.
Arctic Frost formed the basis of special counsel Jack Smith’s elector case against President Donald Trump, who he alleged was trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Cruz did not mince words when he took to the lectern.
“Arctic Frost is Joe Biden’s Watergate,” Cruz said. “Merrick Garland was a fundamentally corrupt attorney general. Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor. This was a political enemies list from the beginning – 197 subpoenas for 430 Republican entities and individuals. That is an absolute and egregious abuse of power.”
Cruz held up Judge Boasberg’s order sent to AT&T, which prohibited the cell phone carrier from informing Cruz for at least one year that his records had been subpoenaed.
“My assumption is Judge Boasberg printed these things out like the placemats at Denny’s, one after another,” Cruz said. A total of nine lawmakers’ phone records were reportedly subpoenaed.
“I am right now calling on the House to impeach Judge Boasberg,” Cruz continued. “Judge Boasberg put his robes down, stood up, and said, ‘Sign me up to be part of the partisan vendetta against 20% of the Republicans in the Senate.”
Another senator backed Cruz’s call.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said that Boasberg “did to Senator Cruz and maybe other senators absolutely — and I don’t say this lightly — absolutely is worthy of impeachment proceedings. There has to be accountability.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) published Arctic Frost documents earlier this month, identifying eight senators and one House member who were hit with the phone subpoenas.
Judge Boasberg has been involved in several controversial actions involving the Trump administration, including ordering in August the release of a woman accused of repeatedly threatening Trump’s life.
Cruz said Judge Boasberg’s stated reasoning for the AT&T hold was that “The Court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation.”
Cruz was furious at the implication, saying, “I can tell you there is precisely zero evidence to conclude that I am likely to destroy or tamper with evidence or to intimidate potential witnesses. Zero evidentiary basis for that. This order is an abuse of power. This order is a weaponized legal system.”
It’s not the first time Judge Boasberg has faced a call for impeachment.
In March, after the judge ordered the Trump administration not to deport suspected members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization, President Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, describing him as a “radical left lunatic of a judge.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
