A good government group filed a formal bar complaint against former FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday for his role in greenlighting the Biden administration’s Arctic Frost lawfare against Donald Trump, The Federalist has learned. The complaint asks the D.C. Bar to investigate the former director for potential violations of existing bar rules governing licensed D.C. attorneys.

“The common theme of those targeted by Arctic Frost was their connection to President Trump, the chief political rival to Joe Biden at the time. Wray’s involvement warrants further inquiry to determine if any professional conduct rules were violated during the course of his oversight,” Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) Director James Fitzpatrick said in a statement to The Federalist.

The complaint obtained by The Federalist cites an April 2022 Justice Department memo previously released by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that shows Wray as one of several high-ranking intel officials to sign off on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost probe. As The Federalist previously reported, the expansive investigation — which also targeted numerous GOP members of Congress and Republican-affiliated individuals and organizations — ultimately became Smith’s elector lawfare against Trump.

In the complaint, Fitzpatrick argued that the actions taken by Smith and his team “were likely performed at the behest of Wray and others.” “At the very least,” he wrote, “they were performed as a result of [Wray’s] recommendations.”

“Indeed, Wray authored the memo requesting that the [Arctic Frost] investigation be initiated,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “He wrote that the Washington Field Office (WFO) needed approval ‘as soon as possible’ to investigate supposed ‘fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes’ and identified as the subject of the investigation as ‘individuals who were closely associated with the Trump Campaign [that] have made public statements implicating themselves in a conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s [sic] certification of the Electoral College.'”

https://thefederalist.com/2026/03/26/exclusive-watchdog-brings-bar-complaint-against-christopher-wray-over-arctic-frost-lawfare/

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (CN) — A federal judge shot down a seven-year case Thursday that claimed that North Carolina’s voter ID requirements target Black and Hispanic voters and are burdensome.

The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and several of its chapters first claimed in 2018 that a law requiring photo ID to vote disproportionately impacts minority voters, arguing it violates section two of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments, imposing burdens on the right to vote that the state can’t justify.

The defendants, including Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger and former state Speaker of the House Tim Moore, contended that the law was carefully shaped after the voters passed a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID and isn’t discriminatory. The requirement is one of the most permissive in the nation, they argued, and the legislature chose to provide exemptions to the rule, allowing voters without ID to fill out an affidavit for their ballot to be counted.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs, a Barack Obama appointee who had previously issued a preliminary injunction halting the photo ID requirement from being used in the 2020 election, found in favor of the Republican defendants in her 134-page trial findings. Trial in the case wrapped up in 2024.

“This case is not about whether North Carolina law will require that voters show photo identification when they go to the polls,” Biggs said, pointing to a 2018 constitutional amendment passed by the voters to institute a voter identification requirement.

The central focus of the case is if state lawmakers violated the 14th and 15th Amendments and the Voting Rights Act in passing the legislation, which they did not, she said.

“This case law requires this court to assign less weight to the historical background," Biggs wrote, referring to North Carolina’s long record of racial discrimination in voting and voter suppression. “It further requires almost impenetrable deference to the presumption of legislative good faith. And finally, even in the shadow of significant evidence of disparate impact, the law of the case doctrine compels the conclusion that the record before this court does not establish discriminatory intent.”

The passage of the law had irregularities, Biggs said, including limited debate and public comment and a shortened timeline. But there was bipartisan support for the bill, and the court has to presume lawmakers acted in good faith. The plaintiffs didn’t present direct evidence that discrimination was at play, she said.

“Finally,” Berger said in a statement Thursday. “After seven years, we can put to rest any doubt that our state’s voter ID law is constitutional. This is a monumental win for the citizens of North Carolina and election integrity efforts.”

https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-upholds-north-carolinas-voter-photo-id-law/