The team behind the Arctic Frost investigation subpoenaed years’ worth of records on Kash Patel, who now heads the FBI, according to documents released on March 24.
Patel was part of the Trump administration from 2019 through January 2021. After the Biden administration took office, Patel began a nonprofit foundation and worked as a consultant, frequently appearing in media to back Trump and his policies.
The subpoenas asked for various details about Patel’s accounts, including financial information and text messages, the records showed. Text and call logs were among the requested details.
He said that previous FBI leaders “secretly subpoenaed my own phone records—along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles—using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”
The FBI declined to comment further on Tuesday.
The case was dropped when Trump in 2024 won a second term in office.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, first obtained records on Arctic Frost and released them in early 2025.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, said during a hearing on Tuesday that Arctic Frost was “a modern Watergate” that targeted lawmakers and people involved with Trump’s reelection efforts, including Patel and Wiles.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said that the subpoenas of Patel made sense, because the FBI director “made himself a fact witness in that investigation” by making comments on podcasts. Whitehouse said that Patel’s grand jury testimony should be made public.
