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FBI Agent Sought to Open Criminal Investigation into Elon Musk, Says Grassley
Confirmed
In Short: Sen. Chuck Grassley has released emails showing an FBI agent sought to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk in 2025, according to records released by Grassley.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Grassley has released emails showing an FBI agent sought to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk in 2025, according to records released by Grassley.
The emails, which Grassley says provide additional evidence for his concerns about federal law enforcement's handling of investigations involving Trump and his political allies, show that FBI agent Kevin Gounaud proposed a criminal probe of Musk in February 2025.
Grassley has previously highlighted FBI agent Walter Giardina, who repeatedly asked to join the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged 2016 Trump campaign ties to Russia.
Grassley said the latest emails show that the concerns he has raised about the FBI were still relevant in 2025.
What's confirmed
- WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Grassley has released emails showing an FBI agent sought to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk in 2025, according to records released by Grassley.
- The emails, which Grassley says provide additional evidence for his concerns about federal law enforcement's handling of investigations involving Trump and his political allies, show that FBI agent Kevin Gounaud proposed a criminal probe of Musk in February 2025.
- Grassley has previously highlighted FBI agent Walter Giardina, who repeatedly asked to join the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged 2016 Trump campaign ties to Russia.
- Grassley said the latest emails show that the concerns he has raised about the FBI were still relevant in 2025.
What's still developing
- ET | Updated Sep. 16, 2026 WASHINGTON — Newly released emails show an FBI agent sought to open a criminal investigation last year into Elon Musk over a government email initiative while Musk served as a special government employee leading efficiency efforts in the Trump administration, according to records released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and first reported by Just The News.
- Grassley said the emails fit a broader “wash, rinse and repeat” approach by federal law enforcement toward Trump and those around him.
- “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 in his opening statement.
- Giardina reached out seven times, including on Inauguration Day in January 2017, offering a fundraising-related angle, according to Grassley.
- Durham’s report said that, at the time Crossfire Hurricane was opened, the FBI did not possess verified intelligence showing that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence officers.
- Internal memos declassified last year showed FBI agents in the Washington Field Office questioned whether there was sufficient probable cause for the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and objected to expanding the warrant to private areas of the residence.
- Grassley had previously highlighted Giardina as part of a group of agents who appeared to celebrate the 2022 indictment of Trump adviser Peter Navarro.
- It shows a former special agent pushed to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk over his social media posts about federal workers, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.