A series of internal F.B.I. emails released on Thursday showed that agents and officials followed standard procedure nearly three years ago when they opened the historic criminal investigation into Donald J. Trump’s attempts to stay in power after he lost the 2020 election.
The emails were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee in the middle of a contentious hearing for the nominee for F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, at which Republicans sought to paint the F.B.I. as a politicized agency that improperly went after targets like Mr. Trump.
But in fact, the emails showed that F.B.I. investigators took normal bureaucratic steps and precautions when opening the extraordinarily sensitive inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election using slates of electors pledged to him in states he had actually lost.
The emails also revealed the names of several F.B.I. agents and bureau officials who worked on the Trump investigation. It is rare for the F.B.I. or the Justice Department to disclose the names of specific agents working on cases — particularly at a time when public servants are facing rampant threats.
One of the emails, dated March 22, 2022, contained a formal request by F.B.I. agents to open the investigation into Mr. Trump, which was code-named “Arctic Frost.” That request, which was made public for the first time by the committee, asserted that the inquiry should be started based on evidence, including statements made by three lawyers — John Eastman, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn — all of whom played a role in the fake electors scheme.
That scheme was arguably the longest-running and the most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election. Evidence about it was ultimately used by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in the indictment he filed in August 2023 accusing Mr. Trump of three intersecting conspiracies to disrupt the lawful transfer of power to his opponent in the 2020 race, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The request by the F.B.I. to open the Trump investigation shed new light on the timeline of the inquiry. It said, for instance, that a grand jury sitting in Federal District Court in Washington began hearing evidence about Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election on Jan. 31, 2022 and that the lead federal prosecutor on the case, Thomas P. Windom, had agreed slightly more than two weeks later with the F.B.I.’s assessment to open a full investigation.
The inquiry formally began on April 13, 2022, when the deputy director of the F.B.I., Paul Abbate, signed the request, according to another email released by the committee on Thursday.
“Arctic Frost Open,” the subject line read.
The fake electors scheme involved dozens of Republican officials who created slates of electors claiming that Mr. Trump won in seven crucial states that he actually lost. It culminated in a campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021 — and in the violent attack on the Capitol that unfolded as he refused to do so.
The F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Trump has been a focus of the committee in part because a former agent who helped open the case was accused of having a political bias and has since become an example of bureau wrongdoing by Republicans and President Trump’s allies.
Among those communicating in the emails were the most senior agent in the Washington field office, bureau lawyers, squad supervisors, a federal prosecutor and Timothy R. Thibault, the agent who helped open the case.
Mr. Thibault was a top agent and veteran public corruption investigator in the Washington field office and played a critical role in seeking justification to open an investigation. In one email, Mr. Thibault, the assistant special agent in charge, sends the opening communication to the head of the office.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has been laser focused on Mr. Thibault since he released a letter addressed to the F.B.I. that accused him of partisanship in 2022. The letter laid out activity on social media that included expressing support for articles critical of Mr. Trump’s attorney general William P. Barr and reposting an article in The Atlantic titled, “Donald Trump Is a Broken Man.”
Former colleagues say that Mr. Thibault was not partisan but knew he displayed poor judgment on social media. They also say that Mr. Thibault and other F.B.I. officials followed the rules.
Indeed one of his emails shows that the F.B.I. should consider the inquiry a sensitive investigative matter, triggering a 2020 policy established by Mr. Barr.
The rule requires top F.B.I. and Justice Department officials to sign off on the memo before investigating any candidate was meant to avoid influencing the race.
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