Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has released a batch of unclassified emails from the FBI's "Operation Crossfire Hurricane," alleging that a former FBI agent sought to initiate a criminal investigation into Elon Musk. The investigation, launched in 2016 to examine potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, is now being scrutinized by Grassley for alleged "Deep State" activities.
Grassley stated that the email exchanges demonstrate "secret, insidious and downright evil operations" conducted by previous administrations, which he described as "worse than Watergate."
Central to the newly released documents are three former FBI agents: Kevin Gounaud, Walter Giardina, and Timothy Thibault. Gounaud, who left the bureau in February, reportedly sent an email in February 2025 proposing a criminal investigation into Musk. At the time, Musk was serving as a special government employee overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Gounaud's complaint stemmed from Musk's announcement on X, formerly Twitter, about having all government employees share five things they worked on daily. Gounaud's email suggested that Musk's use of a non-government system for official purposes, coupled with Twitter's monetization, could be seen as generating personal income, drawing a comparison to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
Grassley publicly criticized Gounaud's actions, tweeting, "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." He contrasted this with the daily work of Iowans.
Further documents indicate that Walter Giardina repeatedly requested assignment to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation between January and February 2017. The findings of Crossfire Hurricane were later transferred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in May 2017.
The released emails also show Giardina corresponding with Thibault, who had previously faced allegations of violating the Hatch Act for resharing a post critical of then-President Trump. While that allegation was dismissed by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Grassley pointed to these communications to argue that FBI agents did, in fact, get to choose their cases, despite public statements to the contrary from former FBI officials.
Grassley's committee has previously released documents related to FBI operations such as "Arctic Frost" and "Round River," asserting that the Justice Department has been weaponized against Republicans. He maintains that the "overall sustained efforts by the Deep State in the dark corners of the bureaucracy is worse than anything Trump has been accused of."