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

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. 

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. 

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."

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.

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." 

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. 

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. 

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.