Sen. Chuck Grassley released an FBI email showing a Washington Field Office agent wanted a criminal investigation of Elon Musk after Musk asked federal workers to list five things they accomplished in a week.
Senate Judiciary Republicans, whose committee Grassley chairs, posted the 2025 email Tuesday and described the writer as a former FBI special agent.
In a February 22, 2025, message, Special Agent Kevin E. Gounaud told Supervisory Special Agent Steven T. Dunn he wanted to open a criminal case on Office of Personnel Management officials who approved sending that request, and on Musk as an alleged co-conspirator. Gounaud wrote that Musk, then a special government employee, used X for official business, which he said may have made Musk money and violated conflict-of-interest law. He also said the message could amount to a threat to fire workers who did not take part.
Gounaud compared Musk’s use of X to Clinton’s use of a private email server for government business. He offered to “write the case opening and find a prosecutor (or at least try)” or send it to the OPM inspector general or Congress, adding, “And no, I’m not kidding.”
In an X post, Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge said the emails show a double standard on special government employees, pointing out that the Justice Department refused to investigate Huma Abedin when Abedin was a special government employee for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and worked for the Clinton Foundation.
