Judiciary Expands Probe Of Hidden, Or Destroyed FBI Docs

The Senate Judiciary Committee is broadening its investigation of documents in the recently discovered “Prohibited Access” section of the FBI’s Sentinel case management computer system. It is also seeking more evidence that FBI agents not only hid but also destroyed federal documents.

By coding them “Prohibited Access,” FBI agents can make the existence of documents invisible when colleagues search the system for files, The Federalist’s Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland recently reported. “When search terms that exist in the Prohibited Access-status cases are searched in Sentinel, the particular search will receive a false-negative Sentinel search response,” a newly released FBI report noted.

The existence of hidden records and whistleblower disclosures has the Judiciary Committee seeking more documents. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to find and provide all Prohibited Access records related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Biden family.

“If the FBI has failed to take steps in the past to access records in ‘Restricted’ or ‘Prohibited’ status, the FBI has not fully responded to many years of my oversight requests,” Grassley wrote in a five-page, June 5 letter.

“It appears that not only did Special Counsel Mueller’s team park federal records in ‘Prohibited Access’ status making them unreviewable, his team also destroyed federal records,” Grassley wrote. His letter indicates that Andrew Weissmann, who was on the Mueller team, appears to have erased the entire contents of his phone several times.

The committee is looking closely at FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina, who played key roles in investigating and prosecuting Peter Navarro, Arctic Frost, Crossfire Hurricane, the Mueller investigation, and the investigations of Dan Scavino, Roger Stone, and Hillary Clinton. Based on whistleblower disclosures to Grassley’s office, the committee will investigate numerous incidents Giardina was allegedly involved in.

Grassley’s letter alleges that Giardina was “an initial recipient of the Steele Dossier and falsely said that the dossier was corroborated as true.” And Giardina had animosity toward President Trump and wanted to investigate him. The letter says Giardina “electronically wiped the laptop he was assigned while working for Special Counsel Mueller outside of established protocol for record preservation raising the possibility that he destroyed government records.”

Grassley’s letter makes 12 requests for documents and interviews, to be delivered to the committee by June 20, including information on how many documents are in the FBI computer system’s Prohibited Access status. If any are related to the Mueller investigation, they should be given to the committee.  

Did Giardina, Andrew Weissmann, or any member of Mueller’s team place any records in Restricted or Prohibited Access status? Under what circumstances?

Are any records relating to investigations into the Biden family in Restricted or Prohibited Access? If so, produce those records.

The committee wants all records, including emails, and text messages relating to Giardina and any of the cases he worked on. The committee also requested all records mentioning the destruction of records by anyone on the Mueller team, and a number of other, similar records.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.