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.
Grassley first revealed the existence of the whistleblower on Thursday, during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for President Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel.
An anti-Trump FBI agent was responsible for opening Smith’s case against President Donald Trump, according to internal Federal Bureau of Investigation emails shared with Sen. Grassley by a DOJ whistleblower, obtained by Fox News.
The correspondence shows the whistleblower alleging the anti-Trump agent broke protocol and played a crucial role in opening and advancing the FBI’s initial probe into the 2020 election by connecting Trump to the investigation without sufficient predication.
The investigation into President Trump, which the FBI opened on April 13, 2022, was known inside the bureau as “Arctic Frost,” according to documents shared with Fox News by Sen. Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).
The senators say these documents prove that the source of Smith’s case against Trump started with FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault — who was later fired from the bureau after violating the Hatch Act.
Other whistleblowers have cited Thibault’s alleged “partisanship,” which they said likely impacted investigations involving President Trump and Hunter Biden.
Fox News reported that a February 14, 2022 email revealed Thibault communicating with a subordinate agent, writing, “Here is draft opening language we discussed,” and attaching content that later became part of Smith’s elector case.
“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,” Thibault reportedly said in another email sent to John Crabb, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, on February 24, 2022.
Sources also noted to Fox News that Thibault was unauthorized to open criminal investigations, as he was not a special agent, yet he took action to open the investigation and involve Trump anyway.
A third email sent the same day reportedly shows Thibault noting he would seek approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to open the case.
A fourth email sent to Thibault on February 25, 2022 by a subordinate agent, Michelle Ball, reveals the two adding Trump and others as criminal subjects to the case.
“Perfect,” Thibault replied.
Another email from April 11, 2022 shows Thibault approving the opening of “Arctic Frost.” Two days later, an FBI agent reportedly emailed Thibault saying the case’s opening was approved by the bureau’s deputy director.
Thibault then emailed Crabb to inform him the elector case was approved, to which the DOJ official replied, “Thanks a lot. Let’s talk next week,” Fox News reported.
On Thursday, Grassley noted during Patel’s confirmation hearing that “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.”
“Was Trump still removed as an investigative subject?” Grassley asked. “If so, which Justice Department and FBI officials — other than Jack Smith — later added him for prosecution?”
The emails appear to show that Richard Pilger, a DOJ official in the department’s Public Integrity Section, reviewed and approved Arctic Frost, which allowed the DOJ to move forward with a full-fledged criminal and grand jury investigation, which later manifested as Smith’s elector case against Trump.
In 2021, Grassley published a report warning of concerns regarding Pilger’s DOJ record.
The following year, Grassley and Johnson sounded the alarm that 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.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
