Newly disclosed FBI records show agents discussing a potential investigation of Elon Musk and reveal repeated efforts by another agent to join the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry, prompting renewed debate over federal investigations involving Donald Trump and his associates.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Newly released FBI emails are renewing scrutiny of how federal law enforcement approached investigations involving President Donald Trump and people associated with him, with records disclosed Tuesday showing one former agent proposing a criminal investigation involving Elon Musk and another repeatedly seeking a role in the FBI’s Trump-Russia inquiry.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made the documents public during an oversight hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. Grassley presented them as part of what he says was a yearslong pattern of federal investigators aggressively pursuing Trump and Republican figures, according to a Just the News report. Grassley’s characterization represents his interpretation of the records; previous Justice Department reviews have reached differing conclusions about aspects of the FBI’s Trump-related investigations.
One of the newly disclosed emails concerns Musk’s work in the Trump administration as a special government employee involved in federal efficiency efforts.
Former FBI agent Kevin Gounaud suggested in a February 2025 email that investigators consider whether Musk’s effort to have federal employees identify their weekly accomplishments could constitute criminal conduct.
The proposal followed an Office of Personnel Management message requesting that employees submit a short list of their accomplishments. The OPM instructions specifically told employees not to provide classified information, links or attachments, according to reporting on Gounaud’s proposal.
Gounaud nevertheless wrote that the person responsible, together with Musk, “encouraged, abetted, aided, etc. thousands if not tens of thousands of government employees to violate government wide security policy and transmit sensitive government information.”
“And no, I’m not kidding,” Gounaud wrote in the February 2025 email.
Grassley said Tuesday that Gounaud “wanted to criminally investigate Elon Musk for facilitating an email asking for five things officials accomplished that week.” The records disclosed by Grassley establish that the idea was proposed internally but do not show that such a criminal investigation ultimately proceeded.
Another set of emails released by Grassley concerns Walter Giardina, an FBI agent who sought involvement in Crossfire Hurricane, the bureau’s investigation into possible connections between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
According to Grassley’s Senate Judiciary Committee statement, Giardina contacted members of the Crossfire team at least seven times over roughly four weeks while expressing interest in joining the investigation and pursuing an additional line of inquiry related to Trump campaign finances.
On Jan. 20, 2017, the day Trump was inaugurated for his first term, Giardina emailed FBI agent Joe Pientka.
“I wanted to mention again my interest in joining the case,” Giardina wrote.
Grassley said available records indicate the proposed investigation did not advance.
The senator connected those communications to other FBI matters involving Giardina. Grassley previously highlighted emails that he said showed agents reacting approvingly to the 2022 indictment of Trump adviser Peter Navarro.
“For almost a decade now, I’ve made records public showing how a number of now discredited law enforcement and intelligence officials schemed to take out Trump and other Republicans,” Grassley said Tuesday. “And here we are, in 2026, still finding records from years ago showing even more evidence of targeting.”
Grassley’s assertion that the records demonstrate political targeting remains a contested interpretation.
A 2019 Justice Department inspector general review found that Crossfire Hurricane was opened after the FBI received information from an allied foreign government concerning Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and possible Russian assistance to the campaign. The inspector general found sufficient predication under Justice Department and FBI standards and said investigators involved in opening the inquiry were not relying on the Steele dossier at that stage. The review also identified significant errors and omissions in later applications to conduct Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Special Counsel John Durham later reached a more critical conclusion concerning how the FBI initiated and conducted the investigation.
The Justice Department’s Durham report stated that, when Crossfire Hurricane opened in July 2016, federal law enforcement and the intelligence community did not possess verified intelligence demonstrating a conspiracy or collaborative relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials. Durham criticized the FBI for proceeding with a full investigation without first conducting additional analysis of the information available to it.
A report on Durham’s findings similarly focused on the lack of verified evidence of collusion in government holdings when Crossfire Hurricane began.
Other declassified material has fueled additional disputes about what federal officials knew during the 2016 campaign.
Documents made public in connection with Durham’s work described intelligence concerning an alleged Clinton campaign proposal to connect Trump politically with Russian interference, material that has since become the subject of renewed congressional examination. Reporting on the declassified Durham annex has emphasized that U.S. intelligence officials received information about such a purported plan during the summer of 2016.
The Steele dossier later became another major source of controversy.
The political opposition research was financed through Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign interests and was used in part to support FISA surveillance applications involving Carter Page. Previously declassified Crossfire Hurricane records have provided additional details about how the FBI handled Steele’s reporting.
The Justice Department inspector general found extensive problems in the Carter Page surveillance process, including inaccurate statements and omitted information in FISA applications, but also found that Steele’s reporting did not provide the original basis for opening Crossfire Hurricane.
The latest disclosures also arrive as records involving former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn receive renewed attention.
Flynn was interviewed Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Pientka regarding his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He later pleaded guilty in December 2017 to making false statements to federal investigators. Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020.
Newly declassified handwritten notes from the agents contain wording that differs in places from the later FBI interview summary, known as an FD-302, according to a review of the records.
Prosecutors alleged Flynn “falsely stated and represented” that he “did not ask the [Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak] to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions the United States had imposed against Russia.”
Those sanctions were imposed during the final weeks of the Obama administration as the United States expelled 35 Russian diplomats and announced measures responding to Russian cyber activity.
Pientka’s handwritten notes include a notation attributed to Flynn concerning his discussion with Kislyak: “Hey, don’t do anything.”
The subsequently prepared FBI summary recorded Flynn’s answer differently, stating: “Not really. I don’t remember. It wasn’t, ‘Don’t do anything.’”
Another difference involves the number of telephone calls Flynn recalled making.
The FD-302 said Flynn remembered making four or five calls while staying in the Dominican Republic. Strzok’s handwritten notes, however, recorded: “If so, don’t remember. If so, busy place to make phone calls.”
Those differences have been cited by Flynn and his supporters as significant to the circumstances of his prosecution. The Justice Department’s Mueller investigation, however, concluded that Flynn made materially false statements about his contacts with Kislyak, and Flynn admitted to false statements when he entered his guilty plea.
The dispute over federal investigative decisions later extended beyond the Russia investigation.
In August 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida as part of the classified-documents investigation.
Internal records later released by the government showed that some FBI personnel raised questions about aspects of the proposed search, including its scope and whether investigators should first pursue additional cooperation from Trump’s attorneys. Reporting on those internal FBI objections said agents questioned the basis for searching private areas such as Trump’s bedroom and personal office.
According to the released records, Justice Department officials ultimately chose to proceed with the warrant.
Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly said in August 2022 that he personally approved the decision to seek the warrant. A federal court authorized the search after making the legally required finding of probable cause. Garland also said Justice Department practice generally favors less intrusive alternatives where possible and narrowly tailoring searches that are undertaken.
The internal records also memorialized then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General George Toscas responding to concerns about political appearances by saying he “frankly doesn’t give a damn about the optics.”
Grassley now argues that the Musk email, Giardina’s repeated requests to join Crossfire Hurricane and previously disclosed records involving Flynn, Navarro and Mar-a-Lago should be considered together when evaluating the FBI and Justice Department’s conduct over the past decade.
The records themselves document disagreements, investigative proposals and internal discussions spanning different administrations and separate cases. Whether they demonstrate a coordinated pattern of political targeting is a conclusion advanced by Grassley and other critics of the agencies, while previous official reviews have reached mixed findings: identifying serious investigative errors in some matters while rejecting or not substantiating political motivation in others.
The newly released emails add another set of primary records to that continuing examination, including an FBI agent’s proposal involving Musk that apparently did not advance and Giardina’s repeated efforts in 2017 to obtain a position on the Crossfire Hurricane team.
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