Anti-Trump FBI agent responsible for opening Jack Smith elector case against president: whistleblower

Fox News Digital obtained internal FBI emails shared with Sen. Chuck Grassley by a DOJ whistleblower

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 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. 

EX-FBI OFFICIAL WHO SHUT DOWN HUNTER BIDEN LINES OF INVESTIGATION VIOLATED HATCH ACT WITH ANTI-TRUMP POSTS 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, 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. 

Sen. Ron Johnson questions Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill, in 2024. (Umit Bektas)

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. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley in the U.S. Capitol after the Senate luncheons on Sept. 24, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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 John Crabb notifying him that the elector case was approved. 

The FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the bureau's headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

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 DOJ to move forward with a full field criminal and grand jury investigation that ultimately transformed into Special Counsel Jack Smith's Trump-elector case. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to remark on a recently unsealed indictment against former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Grassley, in 2021, published a report which raised concerns regarding Pilger’s record at 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."

GRASSLEY PRESSES DOJ, FBI FOR TRANSPARENCY ON 'PARTISAN' POLITICIZATION OF AGENCIES, HUNTER BIDEN PROBE

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.

A federal court ruling has made it more difficult for the Department of Justice to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith, right, 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. (Fox News Digital)

HOUSE WEAPONIZATION PANEL RELEASES 17,000-PAGE REPORT EXPOSING 'TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT'

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. 

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