FBI Director Kash Patel revealed Thursday that bureau officials “self-awarded” themselves a bizarre trophy for their work on the Biden-era “Arctic Frost” investigation.
“People ask why I said the old FBI was a diseased temple,” Patel wrote on X. “This is what corruption looks like when it thinks no one is watching.”
Patel’s post included an image of the “self-awarded trophy celebrating Arctic Frost,” which the director claims was “made by FBI officials.”
The letters “A” and “F” are prominently featured near the top of the bronze-colored trophy, with what appears to be a lighting bolt between the letters and a dollar sign above.
The base includes miniature models of the White House and the Capitol Building and a map of the US with the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania raised.
Republicans in those five states allegedly attempted to claim President Trump defeated Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“CR-15,” a reference to the federal public corruption squad run out of the FBI’s Washington Field Office that was disbanded by Patel last year, is printed along the base of the trophy.
The CR-15 unit was deeply involved in the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation, which was launched to probe allegations of interference in the 2020 presidential election in April 2022 and taken over by former special counsel Jack Smith later that year.
The probe examined efforts by Trump and his allies to challenge the 2020 election results, including by furnishing an alternative slate of electors.
The FBI secretly surveilled more than a dozen lawmakers and investigated more than 100 conservative groups as part of the sweeping probe.
“I disbanded CR-15 and removed the corrupt actors involved,” Patel’s post continued.
“So when legacy media cries that President Trump’s FBI fired people and made sweeping changes, I have one response: You’re damn right we did.”
