Chief Judge James Boasberg, who quietly rubber-stamped gag orders that helped cloak the FBI’s secretive Arctic Frost probe, the same investigation Special Counsel Jack Smith weaponized to bring election-related charges against President Donald Trump.
Now a top federal courts official is scrambling to explain why.
In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, Robert Conrad Jr., director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, insisted that Boasberg likely had no idea that the subpoenas’ targets were sitting members of Congress — because, apparently, the judge was blindly signing whatever the Biden DOJ asked for.
According to Conrad, the Justice Department routinely sent over requests for gag orders, also called non-disclosure orders, that “typically do not attach the related subpoena; rather they identify the subject accounts only by a signifier — e.g., a phone number.” In other words, the judge allegedly wouldn’t know if the number belonged to a lawmaker.
And so, without Congress knowing, phone companies were barred for a full year from telling Republican members that Smith had subpoenaed their records.
Senate Judiciary titan Chuck Grassley, along with Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Jim Jordan, demanded answers from Boasberg after learning the subpoenas targeted GOP lawmakers — and were buried under silent gag orders approved by the judge.
But Conrad claimed he couldn’t address those specific subpoenas directly due to sealed material. Instead, he offered lawmakers only “relevant practices,” sidestepping the central question: Why did a chief federal judge greenlight gag orders that concealed surveillance of Congress?
Grassley, not buying the dodge, tore into the Biden DOJ’s conduct. He noted that DOJ’s own Public Integrity Section had warned Smith’s team to respect constitutional concerns involving the Speech or Debate Clause, which gives lawmakers legal protections in criminal investigations.
Yet Smith pushed forward anyway.
“Smith went ahead with the congressional subpoenas anyway, and it appears he and his team didn’t apprise the court of member involvement,” Grassley said. “Smith’s apparent lack of candor is deeply troubling, and he needs to answer for his conduct.”
Only after a 2024 Inspector General report did DOJ revise its policy, requiring prosecutors to notify courts if they were gagging members of Congress. Smith’s subpoenas — conveniently — came before that rule took effect.
And the fallout has been explosive.
Republican lawmakers have accused the Biden DOJ of spying on them during Smith’s political dragnet for Trump’s allies. They say Boasberg helped facilitate it by signing gag orders that kept them in the dark. Among the loudest critics: Sen. Ted Cruz, who had planned a hearing to consider whether Boasberg’s conduct warranted impeachment — a step Congress rarely uses except in cases of clear corruption.
Sen. Ron Johnson dismissed the court’s letter as yet another bureaucratic brush-off.
“Judge Boasberg’s refusal to answer questions from Congress about his approval of unlawful gag orders is an affront to transparency and an obvious attempt to deflect any responsibility for his awareness of or involvement in Jack Smith’s partisan dragnet,” Johnson said.
He demanded Boasberg lift the seal “and provide the public a full explanation for his actions.”
Public records show that Boasberg authorized numerous gag orders affecting about a dozen House and Senate Republicans. Smith requested a limited set of metadata — timestamps and communication partners — not message content. Smith maintains the subpoenas were “entirely proper.”
Now, the judiciary’s cleanup crew is telling Congress: trust us, the judge didn’t know what he was signing.
If that doesn’t set off alarm bells, what will?
