Attorneys Who Signed Arctic Frost Subpoenas Are No Longer At DOJ

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The 197 subpoenas, issued to financial institutions, consulting firms, conservative organizations and PACs, individuals, and technology companies, were part of Smith’s dragnet searching for incriminating evidence to bring down President Donald Trump and his supporters during the 2024 presidential campaign. The DOJ investigators even surveilled Sen. Ted Cruz’s office landline, senators revealed in a press conference on Wednesday.

All of the six attorneys who signed the subpoenas are no longer employed by the DOJ, The Federalist has learned.

The assistant special counsel who signed the majority of the subpoenas, Maria Vento, is no longer employed by the DOJ and has not been for at least a few months, a source familiar with the situation told The Federalist. A Maria Vento — presumably the same attorney before she parted ways with the DOJ — was credited in a DOJ press release in April as an assistant U.S. attorney and was arguing cases on behalf of the government in May in North Carolina. Her name appears on more than 100 of the subpoenas released on Wednesday.

The source also told The Federalist that Erin B. Pulice, who signed roughly two dozen of the subpoenas as an assistant special counsel, is no longer employed by the DOJ. An Erin Pulice with the same middle initial was affiliated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, according to Justia.

Brooke C. Watson, who operated as Smith’s assistant special counsel and signed 18 different subpoenas in Wednesday’s document trove, was dismissed by Attorney General Pam Bondi in August. She has since become a partner at Dynamis LLP.

Also fired is Matthew Burke, who joined Smith’s team as assistant special counsel in 2022. Burke signed subpoenas compelling former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and former Trump communications director Tim Murtaugh to produce, among other things, communications in which they or others discussed the 2020 presidential election. Burke was fired from his role at the DOJ in late January. So were Timothy A. Duree, a Special Assistant United States Attorney who signed a subpoena compelling documents and testimony from former DOJ employee Robert Gasaway, and Mary L. Dohrmann, who signed a subpoena addressed to Christopher Miller, presumably Trump’s former acting defense secretary.

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