Newly disclosed FBI emails and memos indicate that an openly anti-Trump bureau supervisor relied on activist media coverage, opinion-style prosecution articles, and internal pressure to formally target Donald Trump in the Arctic Frost investigation tied to January 6.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly obtained internal FBI communications show that the controversial Arctic Frost investigation was propelled at its inception by a senior bureau official who had publicly opposed Donald Trump and who repeatedly circulated hostile media coverage to justify expanding the probe to include the president himself.
According to documents turned over to Congress and cited in a detailed Just the News report, Special Agent Timothy Thibault, then serving as assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, organized the initial electronic authorization that opened Arctic Frost. The records show Thibault pressing colleagues to formally name Trump as a subject of the investigation while distributing articles, podcasts, and commentary from left-leaning media outlets to support that move.
Thibault left the FBI in August 2022 after his anti-Trump social media posts became public. Before his departure, emails show him actively advocating for a criminal probe related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, repeatedly sharing coverage from outlets such as Just Security, NPR, and The Washington Post.
Early drafts of the Arctic Frost opening documents initially focused on the Trump campaign and unidentified affiliated figures. One draft contained a handwritten instruction reading “Add DJT,” and subsequent emails show Thibault pushing to include Trump as a predicated subject. In messages circulated in 2022, he shared articles and podcasts critical of Trump, including a prosecution-style legal analysis written by a former Obama Justice Department official.
An April 2022 email shows Thibault formally approving the opening of Arctic Frost. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Just the News through attorneys who previously represented him.
The internal memos also show that in late February 2022, Thibault emailed FBI colleagues urging them to “please review this,” attaching an article titled “United States v. Donald Trump” published by Just Security, a project housed at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.
The article was written by Barbara McQuade, a former Obama-era DOJ official and frequent Trump critic who has authored multiple books and articles opposing the president.
“The following memorandum is a model ‘prosecution memo’ analyzing potential charges against former President Donald Trump for his efforts to pressure Mike Pence to abuse his authority as vice president in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021,” McQuade wrote in the piece circulated by Thibault, comparing her analysis to the 2019 special counsel report stemming from the Trump-Russia investigation.
In early March 2022, Thibault again promoted media coverage inside the FBI, telling colleagues there “may be a good reporting [sic] on the electors tonight on NPR.” While he did not identify a specific story, NPR had recently published several January 6-related articles with headlines such as “The Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 14 people in fake electors scheme tied to Trump,” “GOP candidates and leaders subpoenaed as Jan. 6 panel dives into fake electors scheme,” and “How Trump sought to use fake electors, conspiracy theories to remain in power.”
Thibault also circulated podcasts he described as informational, including a late February 2022 episode of The New Abnormal podcast produced by The Daily Beast and a March 2022 episode produced by The Washington Post.
The Daily Beast podcast said McQuade appeared “to explain how Trump’s big lie is a provable crime,” adding, “Did Donald Trump commit a crime on and before Jan. 6? Barbara McQuade, former national security prosecutor for the Eastern District of Michigan, says yes.” The Washington Post podcast said that Danish filmmakers followed Trump adviser Roger Stone for more than two years and that the footage, combined with the paper’s reporting, shed new light on efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Previously released emails from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley showed that in late February 2022 Thibault wrote he was “working to get DOJ and FBIHQ to gain approval to open a case on the Trump campaign et al. [sic] for conspiring to defraud the US Govt [Government] via the elector scheme.”
The FBI public corruption squad involved in Arctic Frost, known as CR-15, was later disbanded by FBI Director Kash Patel.
Additional emails from early March 2022 show Thibault distributing draft language aimed at Trump, according to newly obtained records. Grassley also released a message in which Thibault wrote, “here is draft opening language we discussed,” and another in which he said there was sufficient predication to include “former President of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject.”
The records further show that in late March 2022, FBI leadership transmitted documentation to Thibault reflecting written approval from both the FBI director and the attorney general to open the investigation.
Grassley has also released a document indicating that Thibault expressed openness to investigating Trump as early as March 2017.
Despite his advocacy, Thibault acknowledged internally that investigators initially lacked a clear evidentiary basis. In one email, he wrote that he was “not sure where the rumor started” that his office was close to opening a case and conceded that “we weren’t close to opening a PI/FI.” He added that agents were “aggressively seeking out open-source information, HUMINT [human intelligence] info that could predicate a case,” and said they would continue discussions with FBI headquarters “on what, if anything we find.”
During the same period, Grassley questioned whistleblower claims that Thibault had directed agents to shut down an avenue of inquiry involving Hunter Biden. The senator later wrote that Thibault allegedly ordered the matter closed without adequate justification.
Thibault’s attorneys from Morrison & Foerster pushed back on those allegations in 2022. “There have been allegations that Mr. Thibault took certain actions in investigations for partisan political reasons,” the lawyers said. “Mr. Thibault did not supervise the investigation of Hunter Biden [and] Mr. Thibault welcomes any investigation of these false allegations, regardless of his retirement.”
The continued release of Arctic Frost records has intensified scrutiny of the FBI’s handling of January 6-related investigations as House Republicans prepare for a public hearing involving special counsel Jack Smith.
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