Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) shared FBI whistleblower records on Thursday that revealed an anti-Trump agent was behind former Special Counsel Jack Smith's 2020 case against President Donald Trump.
The post Grassley Shares FBI Whistleblower Records Revealing Anti-Trump Agent Behind Jack Smith 2020 Case appeared first on Breitbart.
EXCLUSIVE: WASHINGTON — A previously identified anti-Trump FBI agent allegedly broke protocol and played a critical role in opening and advancing the bureau’s original investigation related to the 2020 election, tying President Donald Trump to the probe without sufficient predication, whistleblower disclosures obtained by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed.
That investigation into Trump was formally opened by the FBI on April 13, 2022, and was known inside the bureau as "Arctic Frost," Fox News Digital has learned.
Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chair, shared internal FBI emails and predicating documents — legally protected whistleblower disclosures — exclusively with Fox News Digital.
The senators say the documents prove the genesis of the federal election interference case brought against Trump began at the hands of FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault.
Fox News Digital exclusively reported in 2024 that Thibault had been fired from the FBI after he violated the Hatch Act in his political posts on social media. Previous whistleblowers claimed that Thibault had shown a "pattern of active public partisanship," which likely affected investigations involving Trump and Hunter Biden.
Grassley first publicly revealed the existence of the whistleblower disclosures during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee to serve as FBI director, Kash Patel, on Thursday.
One email, obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, revealed Thibault communicating with a subordinate agent on Feb. 14, 2022.
Thibault said: "Here is draft opening language we discussed," and attached material that would later become part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s elector case.
Another email, sent by Thibault on Feb. 24, 2022, to a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, John Crabb, states: "I had a discussion with the case team and we believe there to be predication to include former President of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject."
Sources told Fox News Digital, though, that Thibault took the action to open the investigation and involve Trump, despite being unauthorized to open criminal investigations in his role — only special agents have the authority to open criminal investigations.
Another email, sent on the same day, notes that he would seek approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to open the case.
Next, an email on Feb. 25, 2022, sent by a subordinate agent, Michelle Ball, to Thibault states that they added Trump and others as a criminal subject to the case.
Thibault responded: "Perfect."
The fifth email, reviewed by Fox News Digital, reveals Thibault emailing a version of an investigative opening for approval. However, this email did not include Trump as a criminal subject.
The sixth email, from April 11, 2022, shows Thibault approving the opening of Arctic Frost, and the next email, on April 13, 2022, was from an FBI agent to Thibault stating that the FBI deputy director approved its opening.
Another email reviewed by Fox News Digital shows Thibault emailing DOJ official Crabb notifying him that the elector case was approved.
Crabb responded, "Thanks a lot. Let’s talk next week."
"Between March 22 and April 13, other versions of the document opening the investigation existed, because a ninth email shows that the FBI General Counsel’s office made edits on March 25," Grassley said during Patel's confirmation hearing Thursday. "Was Trump still removed as an investigative subject? If so, which Justice Department and FBI officials — other than Jack Smith — later added him for prosecution?"
The email records appear to show that an official in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, Richard Pilger, reviewed and approved the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation, authorizing the DOJ to move forward with a full field criminal and grand jury investigation that ultimately transformed into Smith's Trump-elector case.
Grassley, in 2021, published a report which raised concerns regarding Pilger’s record at the DOJ.
Fox News Digital first reported in July 2022 that Grassley warned Attorney General Merrick Garland that Thibault and Pilger were "deeply involved in the decisions to open and pursue election-related investigations against President Trump."
At the time, whistleblowers told Grassley that the Thibault-Pilger investigation's predicating document was based on information from "liberal nonprofit American Oversight."
In the investigation’s opening memo sent to the upper levels of the DOJ for approval, however, whistleblowers claimed Thibault and Pilger "removed or watered-down material connected to the aforementioned left-wing entities that existed in previous versions and recommended that a full investigation — not a preliminary investigation — be approved."
Based on Smith’s scope memo, Grassley and Johnson, in 2022, wrote that the Thibault-Pilger investigation was included in the special counsel’s jurisdiction.
They also pointed out that Smith had a prior relationship with Pilger. Smith was in charge of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit while Pilger was in charge of the Election Crimes Branch.
Grassley and Johnson, in 2022, began sounding the alarm that Special Counsel Jack Smith was "overseeing an investigation that was allegedly defective in its initial steps and an investigation which his former subordinate [Pilger] was involved in opening."
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith, a former Justice Department official, as special counsel in November 2022.
Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ's public integrity section, led the investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and whether the former president obstructed the federal government's investigation into the matter.
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Smith also was tasked with overseeing the investigation into whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
Smith charged Trump in both cases, but Trump pleaded not guilty.
The classified records case was dismissed in July 2024 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.
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Smith charged Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request.
Grassley, during the confirmation hearing on Thursday, said he is requesting "the production of all records on this matter to better understand the full fact pattern and whether other records exist."
The FBI declined to comment.
EXCLUSIVE: Senate Republicans are demanding answers on whether confidential human sources from Justice Department agencies beyond the FBI were used on Jan. 6, 2021, while also questioning whether Inspector General Michael Horowitz thoroughly reviewed classified and unclassified communications between handlers and their sources, warning that without that review, there may be a "major blind spot" in his findings.
Horowitz last week released his highly anticipated report that there were more than two dozen FBI confidential human sources in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but only three were assigned by the bureau to be present for the event. Horowitz said none of the sources were authorized or directed by the FBI to "break the law" or "encourage others to commit illegal acts."
But now, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., are demanding further information from Horowitz, writing to him in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital that it is "unclear" if his office reviewed the use of confidential human sources by other DOJ components during the Capitol riot.
DOJ IG REVEALS 26 FBI INFORMANTS WERE PRESENT ON JAN. 6
"This IG report was a step in the right direction, but Senator Johnson and I still have questions the Justice Department needs to account for," Grassley told Fox News Digital. "The American people deserve a full picture of whether Justice Department sources from its component agencies, in addition to the FBI, were present on January 6, what their role was, and whether DOJ had knowledge of their attendance."
Grassley told Fox News Digital that Horowitz and his team "must redouble its efforts to make sure it has reviewed all relevant information and provide a sufficient response to our inquiry."
Johnson told Fox News Digital he believes the report made public last week "may have only provided a fraction of the story regarding the presence and activities of confidential human sources or undercover federal agents in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021."
"I urge the Inspector General’s office to be fully transparent about their work to ensure that Congress and the public have an accurate and complete understanding about what it actually reviewed," Johnson said.
DOJ INSPECTOR GENERAL DOES NOT DENY FBI INFORMANTS WERE AMONG JAN 6 CROWD
In their letter to Horowitz, Grassley and Johnson noted that the inspector general’s office received more than 500,000 documents from the Justice Department and its components as part of its investigation.
"According to the report, your office obtained: CHS reporting, thousands of tips provided to the FBI, investigative and intelligence records from the FBI case management system, emails, instant messages, and phone records; contemporaneous notes of meetings and telephone calls; chronologies concerning the lead-up of events to January 6; after-action assessments; training materials and policy guides; and preparatory materials for press conferences or congressional testimony as well as talking points," they wrote.
Grassley and Johnson told Horowitz "it is vital" that his office "more precisely explain what records it sought and received from all DOJ component agencies."
Grassley and Johnson are demanding answers on whether Horowitz obtained evidence on whether other DOJ component agencies had tasked or untasked undercover confidential human sources in the Washington, D.C., area or at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
They are also asking if all communications were obtained between DOJ component agency handlers and confidential human sources or undercover agents present in the D.C. area, and whether he has received classified and unclassified non-email communication platforms used by the FBI.
Grassley and Johnson are also demanding Horowitz share all FD-1023 forms, or confidential human source reporting documents, used in the investigation with them.
As for his initial report, Horowitz "determined that none of these FBI CHSs was authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6."
The report revealed that the FBI had a minor supporting role in responding on Jan. 6, 2021 – largely because the event was not deemed at the highest security level by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Horowitz, though, said the FBI took significant and appropriate steps to prepare for that role.
According to the report, there were a total of 26 confidential human sources in the crowd that day, but only three of them were assigned by the bureau to be there.
One of the three confidential human sources tasked by the FBI to attend the rally entered the Capitol building, while the other two entered the restricted area around the Capitol.
If a confidential human source is directed to be at a certain event, they are paid by the FBI for their time.
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