An FBI special agent pushed for a criminal probe of Elon Musk after the billionaire publicly challenged federal workers to explain what they actually do on the taxpayers dime, a newly declassified email shows.
According to The Western Journal, former FBI Special Agent Kevin Gounaud argued in a February 2025 internal email that Musks use of his social media platform X to promote his government efficiency initiative, known as DOGE, could be treated as a crime. He compared Musks conduct to former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons notorious use of a private email server to handle sensitive intelligence, according to the message declassified by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley.
Gounaud advanced a theory that routine weekly emails from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which asked federal employees to list five work accomplishments, might themselves constitute a minor criminal offense. Happy to write the case opening and find a prosecutor (or at least try), he wrote to a colleague.
And no, Im not kidding, the agent added, underscoring that his proposal was not a joke or offhand remark. Gounaud did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via LinkedIn.
In the email, Gounaud urged that the FBI open a formal criminal matter against the OPM official who authorized the internal messages. I would like to recommend the opening of a criminal 58 matter on the person(s) at OPM who approved the transmission of the earlier email, he wrote, claiming that That person in conspiracy with Elon Musk (who is reportedly an [Special Government Employee]), in addition to wasting a colossal amount of official time, encouraged, abetted, aided, etc. thousands if not tens of thousands of government employees outside of a strict need to know.
The agent further alleged that Musk had violated federal laws against personal enrichment because his X account, on a platform he owns, may have been monetized. He also pointed to Musks warning that failure to respond will be taken as a resignation, suggesting this amounted to a form of blackmail.
Grassley declassified the email during a Tuesday hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel, bringing the internal deliberations into public view. The Iowa Republican has long led efforts to expose what he describes as entrenched political bias and partisanship inside the FBI and broader intelligence community.
Under a 2004 statute, intelligence professionals are required to produce analysis and reporting independent of political considerations. Yet a growing body of records, declassified by Grassleys committee and under the Trump administration, has depicted senior officials operating in ways that appear to flout that standard.
For almost a decade now, Ive made records public showing how a number of now discredited law enforcement and intelligence officials schemed to take out Trump and other Republicans. And here we are, in 2026, still finding records from years ago showing even more evidence of targeting, Grassley said in his opening statement at the hearing.
The overall sustained efforts by the Deep State in the dark corners of the bureaucracy is worse than anything Trump has been accused of.?At least hes upfront and open so people can judge, he added, framing the unelected bureaucracy as a greater threat to democratic accountability than the populist former president.
Among the most consequential disclosures are documents related to the FBIs Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the sweeping probe into alleged ties between Donald Trumps 2016 campaign and Russia. Newly declassified material has confirmed that the case leaned heavily on spun, selectively used and in some instances outright fabricated raw intelligence, including the Steele dossier, a lurid opposition research file bankrolled by Democrats during the 2016 race.
Additional records have exposed another FBI operation, codenamed Round River, which cast more than two dozen members of Congress, journalists and senior Trump administration officials as channels for Russian disinformation. That effort, according to the documents, was used to brand damaging information about then-candidate and later President Joe Biden, as well as allegations of corruption in Ukraine, as nothing more than a Russian psychological operation.
Grassleys office noted that the attempt to criminalize Musks actions as a special government employee (SGE) highlights a stark double standard in federal law enforcement. A congressional aide pointed out that the Department of Justice declined to investigate Huma Abedin when she served as an SGE for then-Secretary Clinton while simultaneously drawing a paycheck from the Clinton Foundation.
Other newly released records have revived questions about why the FBI did not pursue a more exhaustive inquiry into Clintons use of a private server to handle sensitive State Department communications. Despite the obvious implications for federal recordkeeping and national security, the bureaus leadership opted against aggressive prosecution or a broad review of all potentially relevant material.
The FBI ultimately obtained roughly 600,000 missing emails from Clintons private server in the closing days of the 2016 election. Yet critics argue that the bureaus handling of that trove reflected a reluctance to fully confront possible wrongdoing by a powerful Democrat, even as it pursued Trump-world figures with zeal.
An email from former FBI Director James Comey to his media liaison Daniel Richman, released as an exhibit in the Department of Justices 2025 case against Comey, underscored the volume of evidence available regarding Clintons apparent evasion of federal recordkeeping laws. That material, conservatives contend, was left largely unexamined while the same institution entertained the notion of prosecuting Musk for prodding bureaucrats to justify their salaries.
For many on the right, the newly declassified Gounaud email fits a familiar pattern: aggressive scrutiny of conservatives and reformers, paired with leniency or indifference toward liberal political elites. As the Musk episode joins Crossfire Hurricane, Round River and the Clinton email saga in the public record, the question looming over the FBI is whether it can reclaim the nonpartisan integrity the law demandsor whether a politicized Deep State has become a permanent feature of Washingtons vast administrative machinery.
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