‘Worse than Watergate’: Grassley says new FBI files expose ‘evil’ effort to take down Trump
The Senate Judiciary Committee Chair says newly public records provide further evidence of what he describes as a yearslong effort by law enforcement and intelligence officials to target Trump and other Republicans.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a batch of unclassified emails between FBI agents stemming from Operation Crossfire Hurricane, a Justice Department investigation launched during the Obama administration into whether then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign was colluding with Russia during the 2016 election.
Grassley argued that the email exchanges, which included former FBI Special Agent Kevin Gounaud seeking to open an investigation into Elon Musk over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), revealed that the "Deep State" was at work to undermine Trump.
"The previous Democrat administrations under Obama and Biden conducted secret, insidious and downright evil operations that almost took down our government," Grassley said during an Oversight hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. "That's arguably worse than Watergate."
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Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, Sept. 16, 2025 (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Over the past decade, the Senate Judiciary Committee, at the direction of Grassley, has released several rounds of documents from a few FBI operations such as Operation Arctic Frost and Round River, alleging that the Justice Department was being weaponized against Trump and Republicans.
"The overall sustained efforts by the Deep State in the dark corners of the bureaucracy is worse than anything Trump has been accused of. At least he’s upfront and open so people can judge," Grassley said.
At the center of the Senate Judiciary Committee's most recent document release are three former FBI agents: Gounaud, Walter Giardina, who was fired by Patel in August over accusations of political weaponization, and Timothy Thibault.
Gounaud, who left the bureau in February, according to his LinkedIn, sent an email in February 2025 seeking to begin a criminal investigation of Musk. At the time, Musk was a special government employee overseeing DOGE. Gounaud's complaint centered on Musk announcing on X his plan to have all government employees share five things they worked on that day.
"Musk used a non government system (twitter) to relate information that allegedly was for official purposes. In doing so, because he is monetized (he is a majority owner of twitter) he likely generated income for himself based on Twitter's monetization model and/or advertising revenues," Gounaud wrote. "His use of twitter in this and other instances is conceptually similar to Hillary Clinton's misuse of a private email server for government business."
Grassley later criticized the former FBI agent in a post on X.
Elon Musk listens as President-elect Donald Trump addresses a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 13, 2024. Trump was in Washington to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House and Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill. (Getty Images)
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"Here is an email I released 2day showing an FBI agent who was ready2 open a CRIMINAL CASE all bc Elon Musk asked govt bureaucrats 2 report 5 things they did in a wk," Grassley wrote. "Compare that 2 Iowans who work frm sunup to sundown EVERY DAY Washington rlly is an island surrounded by reality."
The document dump also shows that Giardina emailed at least seven times over the course of four weeks beginning in January 2017 asking to be assigned to Crossfire Hurricane. The findings of the investigation were handed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller a few months later in May.
Robert Mueller, then FBI director, speaks during a news conference at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2008. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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The emails show that Giardina was in correspondence with Thibault, who Grassley had accused of violating the Hatch Act. The allegation, which was investigated and dismissed by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), stemmed from Thibault resharing a post on then Twitter by the Lincoln Project, which called Trump a "psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man."
Thibault is included in several emails sent by Giardina to former Supervising Agent Joe Pientka.
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"Based on the records known to date, that case didn’t advance," Grassley said. "His efforts, as well as the case he tried to open on Senator Sinema, undercut public statements by former FBI officials that agents don’t get to pick their cases."
Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment.
