(FreedomBeacon.com)- According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s watchdog, a senior FBI official in Washington, D.C., may have violated the law. A Republican senator claims “partisan posts” disparaging former President Donald Trump and former U.S. Attorney General William Barr (DOJ) by Timothy Thibault.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a Republican, was warned on Wednesday by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz that Thibault, an assistant FBI special agent, may have violated the Hatch Act (OSC). Grassley requested Horowitz to look into Thibault “for possible violations of federal regulations and Department policies designed to prevent political prejudice from infiltrating FBI matters” in May.
Horowitz wrote to Grassley expressing that after carefully examining the information in his letter, we determined that some of the allegations and conduct you described in your letter implicate potential violations of the Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities of federal employees. The investigation and prosecution of alleged Hatch Act violations are under the purview of the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC).
Horowitz said that they had forwarded the pertinent claims to OSC for examination.
According to a representative for the FBI, “all FBI employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct,” and “any complaints of misconduct are taken seriously and referred to the Inspection division.”
According to the OSC, the Hatch Act, passed in 1939, restricts some political actions of federal workers, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who operate in connection with federally financed programs. “Federal programs are managed in a nonpartisan manner,” according to the statute.
In a letter sent in May, Grassley also gave the FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland a deadline of June 14 to turn over any papers related to Thibault and his work for the bureau.
According to Grassley, Thibault, who has been in charge of the FBI’s most major federal public corruption investigations, has a history of making inappropriate comments about Trump and Barr on social media. The senator claimed that Thibault has posted publicly and that his LinkedIn network includes “current and former FBI agents.”
According to Grassley, the FBI employee “liked” a LinkedIn post for a February 2020 opinion piece in The Washington Post in which it was suggested that longtime Trump ally and former campaign adviser Roger Stone should have been imprisoned in connection with the Russian investigation. The senator claimed that Thibault “liked” a September 2020 opinion piece from The Washington Post on LinkedIn with the heading “William Barr Has Gone Rogue.”
Officials shouldn’t act partisanly since public corruption investigations are some of the most sensitive cases, according to Tom Jones, executive director of the federal watchdog American Accountability Foundation, who spoke to TheDCNF.
For a division that has struggled for decades to reassure the public of its impartiality, he said, the fact that there are agents who cannot seem to set their political biases aside will have a corrosive effect on public confidence in public corruption investigations.
According to Grassley, Thibault also shared a tweet from the anti-Trump Lincoln Project in 2020 that quoted The Atlantic piece “Donald Trump is a Broken Man.”
In addition, Grassley said in 2020 that Thibault tweeted to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney that her “dad is a disgrace.”
And Thibault doesn’t feel his actions are at all disgraceful. Strident activists always feel as if they are righteous.
