The more information that comes to light on former Special Counsel Jack Smith's Arctic Frost investigation, the more it becomes very apparent that Smith far exceeded any appropriate limits in his gathering of information on various conservative political groups. The Emmy Award-winning Catherine Herridge, on Friday, revealed that Smith's team collected personal payroll data for the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), including not just salary but also benefit data.
EXCLUSIVE: New whistleblower reporting via @ChuckGrassley reveals that personal payroll data for the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) was collected by Jack Smith’s team. The financial data included CPI employees’ medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage, along with a CPI bank statement. BACK STORY: In fall 2025, Grassley revealed that CPI was one of 430 groups subpoenaed or targeted by Jack Smith as part of the Arctic Frost probe, which laid the foundation for the Jan. 6 investigation. The new reporting shows that Smith’s collection of data and financial records was broader than previously reported. While Smith had a mandate to investigate Jan. 6, the collection of CPI’s February 2023 payroll data appears to go beyond the scope. Critics, including Grassley and @SenJudiciaryGOP say Smith’s sweeping data collection aimed to map the entire Republican network. NOTE: Combining data sets from donors, voter registration, lawmakers’ phone records (not contents), and financial transactions is far more revealing and intrusive. It can reveal a network as well as the frequency of the contact and strength of relationship. Smith has defended the overall investigation as fact-driven and non-political.
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) October 16, 2026
Catherine Herridge writes:
EXCLUSIVE: New whistleblower reporting via @ChuckGrassley reveals that personal payroll data for the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) was collected by Jack Smith’s team. The financial data included CPI employees’ medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage, along with a CPI bank statement.
BACK STORY: In fall 2025, Grassley revealed that CPI was one of 430 groups subpoenaed or targeted by Jack Smith as part of the Arctic Frost probe, which laid the foundation for the Jan. 6 investigation. The new reporting shows that Smith’s collection of data and financial records was broader than previously reported. While Smith had a mandate to investigate Jan. 6, the collection of CPI’s February 2023 payroll data appears to go beyond the scope. Critics, including Grassley and @SenJudiciaryGOP say Smith’s sweeping data collection aimed to map the entire Republican network.
That doesn't smell like an investigation. What it does smell like I won't repeat here (this is a family-friendly site) but what it looks like is a fishing expedition. But then, we knew that, didn't we?
This raises some serious questions. This investigation was supposedly started to look into alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the aftermath of that hotly contested transfer of power. But now we are learning that Smith's team went far beyond the bounds of sanity, with at least 92 Republican organizations and individuals placed under Smith's microscope. We have also learned that at least eight Republican Senators were also in the spotlight. The Smith team gathered financial data, phone records, personal information, and even location data.
To what end? This is a guess, but if one were just sifting through data to find anything questionable, this is pretty much what it would look like. Catherine Herridge concludes:
NOTE: Combining data sets from donors, voter registration, lawmakers’ phone records (not contents), and financial transactions is far more revealing and intrusive. It can reveal a network as well as the frequency of the contact and strength of relationship. Smith has defended the overall investigation as fact-driven and non-political.
It's not fact-driven. It's not non-political. It was a partisan witch hunt, and that's all it was. Yes, the 2020 election was hotly contested, right up until the time Joe Biden shuffled into the Oval Office. Yes, there were probably some unwise things said and some unwise actions taken. But nothing justifies the depth to which Jack Smith's team started assembling dossiers on Republican politicians, Republican voters, and Republican organizations. And, we are compelled to apply the "shoe on the other foot rule" here — and imagine, if you will, the response from Democrats and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) was the political parties in this case reversed.
See our earlier coverage of Jack Smith and his misadventures here and here.
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