[Pages S533-S534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, over the last 3 or 4 years, I have come 
to the floor to discuss with my colleagues information that I get from 
whistleblowers in the FBI and the Department of Justice, most of it 
dealing with the subject of the critical weaponization of people at the 
highest levels of the FBI and their violating of protocol, getting 
involved in political situations that the FBI has no business being in.
  Last week, when Mr. Patel was before my Judiciary Committee, I 
released some new emails that I have gotten that show further 
involvement of certain people in the case against Trump that Jack Smith 
headed up. I am here today because, when I released those emails, last 
week, there was a New York Times story that got it all wrong. So, 
today, I want to bring to my colleagues' attention a January 30, 2025, 
New York Times article from Adam Goldman and Alan Feuer about my and 
Senator Johnson's oversight of the FBI.
  In that article they said: ``FBI emails released Thursday showed that 
agents and officials followed standard procedure'' when opening the 
Trump elector case.
  Well, they read it wrong, and I am going to tell you why they read it 
wrong.
  The article written by these two can be summed up like this: a very 
wet kiss to the politically biased leadership within the FBI.
  Last week, Senator Johnson and I made public FBI records that showed 
a snapshot into the origins of the Jack Smith elector case against 
Trump. Those records included a February 14, 2022, email from Assistant 
Special Agent in Charge Thibault to his subordinate agent, Michelle 
Ball. The subject line of that email was ``Elector Matter.''
  My office has been told that Thibault handpicked subordinate agents, 
including Michelle Ball and Jamie Garman, who are both referenced in 
the documents that I released, to conceal his role as an initiating 
agent. The documents Senator Johnson and I released support that.
  In the February 2022 email, Special Agent Thibault says, in part: 
``Here is [the] draft opening language we discussed.'' Attached to that 
email is a Word document titled ``Elector.'' That Word document, when 
opened, contains information that became part of the predicating 
document that would later be approved to open the case code-named 
``Arctic Frost.'' That was all about prosecuting then-Citizen Trump.
  When opening the Word document, it says this: ``Author: Timothy 
Thibault.'' It also says this: ``Last modified by: Timothy Thibault.''
  Today, Senator Johnson and I will be publicly releasing a new email 
that we have obtained that was sent from Thibault to Michelle Ball and 
Jamie Garman on March 1, 2022. In the email, Thibault says: ``To add . 
. . will come by to discuss.'' The document was attached to the email, 
with language to be added to the Arctic Frost document opening the 
investigation against Trump.
  The document attached to the email lists the author and modifier as--
you guess it--Thibault.
  The document itself is titled ``Arctic Frost,'' and it adds President 
Trump as a criminal subject to the investigation. Notably, the document 
lists then-Chairman Durbin's 2021 investigative report on Trump to help 
justify that Trump yet fails to use my 2021 report, which provided much 
needed context.
  Now, the New York Times article said the FBI records Senator Johnson 
and I made public ``showed that agents and officials followed standard 
procedure,'' but that totally ignores the facts and evidence, let alone 
not even considering the FBI rules for making these determinations for 
opening a prosecution case.
  So I go to these rules. Section 7.7.1 in the FBI's Domestic 
Investigations and Operations Guide--and that is, essentially, the 
FBI's manual--is titled, ``Opening Documentation.''
  That rule shows the work flow approval and makes clear that 
supervisors--I want to emphasize ``supervisors''--are to approve the 
work product provided to them. The point here is Thibault did not 
conduct himself like that sort of a supervisor.
  In other words, the intent of this rule, based on its plain text, is 
that subordinate agents provide work product to supervising agents for 
the latter's approval. Should there be any doubt about this intent, 
look no further than section 3.5.2.3 titled ``No Self-Approval Rule.'' 
That rule says, in part: ``an approval official (and the rule uses the 
word supervisor to define this person) may not self-approve his/her own 
work activity. An independent evaluation and approval of these 
activities must be obtained, including the opening and closing of any 
Assessment or predicated investigation.''
  Then the rule says this: ``In the event that an FBI employee errantly 
conducts a self-approval, the approval is considered substantial non-
compliance and must be documented.'' So that leaves you with Thibault 
self-approving something that he wasn't supposed to self-approve.
  Moreover, another FBI document defines ``general roles and 
privileges'' of supervisors as this: ``Supervisor--assigns leads; 
approves documents; assigns squad current workload.''
  None of this says that a supervisor like Thibault is allowed to draft 
and open a case and approve it for themselves.
  Based on the facts and the evidence that Senator Johnson and I have 
obtained to date, and based on the FBI's own rules, Thibault 
essentially self-approved his own case, in violation of FBI

[[Page S534]]

rules, which means this guy was out to get Trump as fast as he could.
  According to this case that, again, I say is named Arctic Frost, as 
they code-named the Trump case, it was defective from the very start, 
not only from a political infection standpoint but also because of 
substantial noncompliance with FBI rules.
  Getting back to the New York Times article, at this point, the paper 
simply is an FBI stenographer and propagandist, parroting FBI lies, 
claiming emails released by me and Senator Johnson ``showed that agents 
and officials followed standard procedure'' when opening Arctic Frost.
  As with most of the information in the leaks the FBI has laundered 
through Goldman, the truth is quite the opposite of the FBI and the New 
York Times' narrative.
  Does the New York Times believe that it is normal for an Assistant 
Special Agent in Charge to prepare case predication for the opening of 
an investigation and then feed it to a street agent? And add to that 
doing it to a former President of the United States.
  Is it normal for FBI agents to ignore sources that counteract the 
predication they so badly manufacture? Is it normal for an Assistant 
Special Agent in Charge to boast anti-Trump social media poses under 
his true name and title while he is overseeing the most politically 
sensitive investigation for the FBI? Is it normal for an Assistant 
Special Agent in Charge responsible for the most sensitive political 
investigations in the FBI to be forced to resign for partisanship on 
the job and then be found to have violated the Hatch Act for that same 
partisanship?
  It seems to this Senator that the New York Times has become the paid 
publicist of senior members of the FBI, an unethical quid pro quo of 
pushing their narratives in exchange for publishing false information.
  On the occasion of the latest article as a mouthpiece for nameless 
FBI sources, I invite the New York Times editorial board to undertake 
its own investigation into Goldman's receipt of one-sided law 
enforcement information leaked to him from FBI employees. Absent that, 
continued New York Times reporting in this area is inherently 
questionable.
  Now, I started this by talking about occasionally, from time to time, 
I come to the U.S. Senate floor to discuss information I get from 
whistleblowers that deals with the political weaponization of the FBI. 
I released some of those emails last week at the Patel hearing.
  Now, what Patel is all about, by President Trump appointing him to 
FBI Director, is simply to see that none of this stuff that I have 
discussed in previous speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate ever 
happens again and that the FBI is going to be a law enforcement Agency 
and not a political weaponization organization. And I say that about 
the people that are on the seventh floor of the Hoover FBI Building. I 
am not condemning the people that are working FBI cases in Iowa or any 
of the other 49 States because they are doing their job. But they 
should have the full support of the seventh floor of the building and 
not be concerned about prosecuting a former President of the United 
States, now reelected as the 47th President of the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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