New FBI records released by Sen. Chuck Grassley detail efforts involving Trump and Elon Musk, renewing debate over alleged political targeting.
Newly released FBI records are putting fresh focus on long-running allegations that federal investigators pursued politically sensitive cases involving Donald Trump and figures in his orbit.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, unveiled additional records during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on September 15, describing what he characterized as evidence of politically motivated activity inside the FBI. The documents include emails involving former FBI Special Agent Kevin Gounaud and records concerning former agent Stephen Giardina’s repeated attempts to join the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump.
Grassley has described the broader controversy as potentially “worse than Watergate,” a characterization that reflects his assessment of the records rather than an established legal finding.
New records put Trump investigation under microscope
According to Grassley’s account, Giardina repeatedly sought a role on the FBI’s Crossfire team in early 2017. The senator said records show at least seven requests over roughly four weeks to join the investigation and pursue a new case involving Trump.
The timing is significant. Grassley said Giardina’s efforts began around January 2017, shortly before Trump’s inauguration, and included an email sent on Inauguration Day expressing renewed interest in joining the case. The senator said the effort ultimately did not advance based on the records currently available.
That distinction matters.
The newly public material documents what individual agents proposed or sought to do. It does not, by itself, establish that every proposed investigation was approved, carried out, or directed by senior political officials.
Still, the emails have become another piece of a much larger congressional inquiry into how federal law enforcement handled investigations touching Trump and Republicans.
Elon Musk also appears in the documents
The latest disclosure reaches beyond Trump.
Grassley said former FBI Special Agent Kevin Gounaud wanted to pursue a criminal investigation involving Elon Musk over a federal-worker initiative requiring employees to report several accomplishments from the previous week. The senator said he was making the email public as part of his oversight work.
A newly surfaced account of the document says Gounaud proposed opening a criminal matter involving Musk and Office of Personnel Management officials. Importantly, the document does not establish that the FBI ultimately approved or opened such an investigation.
That is a crucial line between an allegation contained in an internal communication and an actual federal criminal case.
The wider Arctic Frost controversy
The new disclosures arrive as Grassley’s broader investigation into FBI conduct continues to expand.
The senator has spent years releasing records connected to Arctic Frost, an FBI investigation that examined efforts surrounding the 2020 presidential election and was later connected to special counsel Jack Smith’s work. Congressional Republicans have argued that the investigation improperly swept in Republican lawmakers and organizations.
In October 2025, Grassley’s committee said records showed the FBI obtained phone “tolling data” involving eight Republican senators and one Republican House member during the investigation. The data covered information such as calls, durations and certain location information, rather than the content of conversations.
Grassley has repeatedly characterized those actions as evidence of government weaponization. Other officials and critics have disputed Republican interpretations of the investigations, underscoring how politically contested the broader controversy remains.
Why the latest FBI records matter
The significance of the latest document release is less about a single email than about the picture lawmakers are attempting to assemble from years of records.
Piece by piece, congressional investigators are examining how FBI agents selected cases, sought assignments and handled politically sensitive investigations. The emerging story is therefore not simply about one Trump probe or one proposed investigation of Musk. It is about institutional decision-making inside a federal agency whose investigative powers carry enormous consequences.
That makes the documents politically explosive—but also demands careful scrutiny.
An email expressing an agent’s desire to investigate someone is not equivalent to proof that the FBI opened a criminal case. Likewise, congressional allegations about political motivation remain allegations unless independently established by evidence or official findings.
For Grassley, however, the newest records strengthen his argument that more disclosure is needed.
And the document trail is far from closed. As additional FBI records emerge, the central question will increasingly be whether they reveal isolated decisions by individual agents or a broader pattern in how politically sensitive investigations were conceived, approved and pursued.
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