Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) walked into an FBI briefing Monday unprepared for the shock of learning that her own government had been spying on her.
Lummis was one of eight senators who were told in Monday’s briefing by FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino that the Joe Biden administration had been spying on their communications.
The FBI revealed that Republican Sens. Lummis, Lindsey Graham (SC), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Ron Johnson (WI), Josh Hawley (MO), Bill Hagerty (TN), Dan Sullivan (AK), Tommy Tuberville (AL), and Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (PA) were “wrongfully surveilled via our telephone records,” Lummis told Breitbart News. “It’s shocking that the FBI would assault our constitutional rights in that way.”
Lummis has “no idea” why Smith target her or her colleagues, and had no suspicions before Monday that any such surveillance had taken place. “Everybody in the room was stunned,” she said.
But given what she has learned, Lummis does not believe that the targeting was limited to those nine lawmakers.
“It now appears that it was an ongoing practice of the Biden-led FBI to spy on Republican senators in their official capacities,” she told Breitbart News. “You know, there are laws against that. When you are violating the civil rights of any American while acting under color of the law, you are in violation of their civil rights. And then you throw on top of that that these are U.S. Senators acting in their official capacity.
“This is wrongdoing at the very highest levels of government.”
Director Kash Patel’s FBI learned of the spying from a whistleblower who had seen a memo created in 2023.
“Without that whistleblower, the FBI under its current leadership would not have known about this,” Lummis said.
Among Lummis’s many questions is what other activities by Biden’s administration have yet to be uncovered.
“There is proprietary encrypted technology at the FBI that is capable of hiding information from the current FBI that was generated by the Biden FBI,” she said. “So this is corruption at the government level, at the very highest level, and we can’t allow this to happen in our freest country on Earth.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose name was not one of those revealed to be the target of Smith’s spying, was in the meeting and will play a leading role in investigating and holding accountable those involved — and discovering what else is out there.
“He is incensed and angry, and I believe will be taking additional steps at the Senate Judiciary Committee level on this matter as will [Attorney General Pam] Bondi and the Bondi-led Justice Department and the Kash Patel-led FBI.”
The latest bombshell from Patel’s FBI is further proof of the level of insidiousness from the Biden administration, Lummis believes.
“I think that this is another indication that there truly was a broad Democrat-led conspiracy, that it went to the highest levels in the government, the elected government, and that the Democrats have been doing for years,” Lummis told Breitbart News. She continued:
What they now accuse Republicans of doing — but [that Republicans] have not done — is the Democrats choosing to interfere with elections, interfere with the activities of elected officials, spying on people, lying about President Trump in litigation, lying about President Trump in the dossier that was used to get FISA warrants against him that perpetuated the lie of the Russiagate matter. And they all knew it was a lie, and they furthered it, and they doubled down. And [they] all did it to prevent President Trump and the Republicans from holding elected office ever again. It’s so shocking. It’s so beyond the pale of what one would expect from our democratic republic that we have to dig further.
“We have to find out the extent of the Deep State’s abuse of our free democracy in a way that takes us down a path so dark that it shocks the conscience,” she added.
Until the FBI learns more, Lummis and her colleagues are left to speculate on why the Biden administration surveilled them.
“Did they think that the senators on this list had information showing that the FBI [was] involved in stealing the 2020 election, and they were afraid we were on to them, afraid the jig was up? Was that it?” she asked. “Your mind goes in many different directions.”
The more information the public learns about Biden-era government weaponization against Trump and his allies, the less patience Lummis has for Democrats — perhaps protecting themselves — who protest that Republican efforts to uncover government corruption are inappropriate.
“Everywhere I turn I see the Democrat-led government using the very tactics that they accuse Republicans of using,” Lummis said. “They invented these tactics, they deployed these tactics, and then they try to deflect blame for what they have done by blaming Republicans of doing the same thing. These are tactics out of the Bolshevik era. I mean, honestly, we have strayed into the tactics of Karl Marx. And I don’t say that lightly, and I believe the Democrat Party has taken a very dark turn, and those who think otherwise are either blind or naive.”
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
