The FBI launched an investigation into four Republican members of Congress in January 2021 even after top prosecutors privately agreed the central allegations lacked credibility, newly obtained records show. The probe, code-named "Rampart Twelve," targeted Reps. Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, and Andy Biggs, and investigators went so far as to pull toll records for at least two of them before FBI headquarters finally ordered the case shut down a year later.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley obtained the documents and plans to present them during a Tuesday hearing on the broader "Arctic Frost" investigation into secret subpoenas issued against Republican members of Congress. The records include text messages between prosecutors, internal emails, and memos that trace the investigation from its earliest days through its quiet closure in January 2022.
The gap between what prosecutors said privately and what the FBI did publicly is the core of this story. And it raises a question that keeps surfacing in Washington: How many investigations during the Biden years were driven by evidence, and how many were driven by politics?
The trail begins on January 12, 2021, six days after the Capitol riot, when 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 Jan. 6. Sherrill and more than 30 other Democrats also sent a letter to Capitol security officials seeking information about "suspicious" visitors on January 5.
By the next day, prosecutors were already skeptical. Former federal prosecutor Molly Gaston texted colleague J.P. Cooney on January 13, 2021, writing: "so michie [sic] sherrill has such important groundbreaking information that she has agreed to talk to amanda...friday." The sarcasm was hard to miss.
Cooney's response was blunt. He called Sherrill's handling of her claims "embarrassing" and "appalling," and added that her conduct "makes her allegations completely incredible." That same day, Cooney reviewed video footage and described what he saw: "a maga hat group about a minute behind her but it's a family, with kids."
Three days later, on January 16, Cooney texted Gaston again after reviewing footage of Boebert in the Capitol. His assessment: "it's weird," but "does not look suspicious."
None of this stopped the investigation from moving forward.
On January 22, 2021, Cooney sent an email confirming that the preliminary investigation had been officially opened. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Cooney justified the move by arguing that "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."
Cooney also reassured former FBI Agent Timothy Thibault that rules governing "sensitive investigations" during election season 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."
That framing allowed the probe to proceed without the additional layers of scrutiny that ordinarily apply when federal investigators look into elected officials. And proceed it did. Investigators obtained toll records for both Boebert and Gosar, the records show.
The pattern of the Biden-era FBI using aggressive surveillance tools against political figures on the right is not new. Separate records have shown that the bureau swept up two years of Kash Patel's calls, texts, and financial records under the Jack Smith probe.
What makes the Cooney texts so damaging is not just the skepticism they reveal, it is the way that skepticism coexisted with an appetite to keep digging. On the same day he dismissed Sherrill's claims as "completely incredible," Cooney also wrote that he needed to "figure out what time the [Gosar] thing happened." The "Gosar thing" referred to a claim by a staffer, though the records do not elaborate on its substance.
In a separate exchange, Cooney wrote: "i'm telling you though, this tour/map thing has legs." He then added a longer assessment that captures the tension at the heart of the probe:
"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."
So the same prosecutor who called the triggering allegations "completely incredible" was also "fairly confident" the investigation would link a congressional office to extremist activity. He acknowledged that proving intent "might be impossible", yet the probe rolled on.
The investigation also drew on claims by Ali Alexander, the "Stop The Steal" rally organizer, who said he developed a plan with Brooks, Gosar, and Biggs to put "maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting." Alexander's statement became part of the investigative basis, though the records do not indicate whether it was independently corroborated.
By December 2021, a Washington Field Office FBI agent sought approval to escalate. The agent requested permission to "move through with our proposed course of action (see June memo) and interview Boebert and Gosar, with appropriate coordination with DC USAO."
That request was denied. In January 2022, Thibault informed the agent that "direction from FBIHQ is to close the case." The probe ended, not with charges, not with public findings, but with a quiet order from headquarters. No explanation for the closure was detailed in the records.
The FBI's willingness to pay an anti-Trump tech group for January 6 investigations during this same period only deepens questions about whether the bureau's approach to the Capitol riot was shaped more by political orientation than by evidence.
Both Cooney and Gaston later joined special counsel Jack Smith's team after his appointment in 2022. Smith prosecuted President Donald Trump, and his office issued secret subpoenas that swept up the records of multiple Republican members of Congress. In February, three phone company executives testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about why they turned over records of 20 current or former Republican members in response to those subpoenas.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said the newly released messages "show Justice Department attorneys sought to investigate republicans no matter how spurious the allegation." Johnson added a pointed observation about the career trajectory of the prosecutors involved:
"Smith eventually hired both J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston, allowing them to continue their partisan work. My oversight efforts will continue to expose what was occurring in Jack Smith's office."
That Gaston's own texts revealed a dismissive attitude toward politicians, she wrote "i hate politicians," then corrected herself: "hate is the wrong word. I'm disillusioned by them", only adds texture to the question of whether these prosecutors approached their work with the neutrality the public expects.
Concerns about political bias inside the bureau have surfaced repeatedly. Even an FBI deputy director's social media interaction with an anti-Trump Democratic candidate drew scrutiny, with the bureau dismissing it as an accident.
Grassley framed the documents as part of a broader pattern. He told the Daily Caller News Foundation:
"Operation Rampart 12 is yet another example in which Republicans were unfairly targeted and secretly subjected to an invasive investigation by the Biden DOJ and FBI. 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."
He also took aim at Democratic colleagues who have resisted the oversight push: "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."
Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri was equally direct. He called the documents evidence 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."
Schmitt added: "This fishing expedition was nothing more than a political agenda. 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."
House Republicans had flagged the underlying problem early. In May 2021, they filed an ethics complaint against Democrats who claimed "without evidence" that members had led "reconnaissance" tours of the Capitol. Questions about selective enforcement and politically sensitive investigations during the Biden years have only multiplied since.
The records released so far raise questions they do not fully resolve. Why did FBI headquarters ultimately order the case closed? Were the toll records for Boebert and Gosar ever used in other investigations? Did the Rampart Twelve probe generate any referrals or feed into the later Smith subpoenas? And who at the FBI or DOJ approved the initial opening of the investigation after prosecutors had already cast doubt on the allegations?
The Tuesday hearing may shed light on some of these gaps. But the documents already in hand tell a clear story: prosecutors privately mocked the allegations, called them "completely incredible," acknowledged that proving intent "might be impossible", and opened the investigation anyway.
When the people running an investigation don't believe in it but run it anyway, the public has a right to ask who the real target was, and why.
