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FBI Agent Wanted To Investigate Elon Musk For Asking Federal Employees What They Did That Week
Daily Caller ^ | 15 Sep, 2026 | Emily Kopp

Posted on 09/15/2026 9:06:01 AM PDT by MtnClimber

An FBI special agent sought a criminal investigation into Elon Musk for asking government officials what they do all day, a newly declassified email reveals.

Former Special Agent Kevin Gounaud emailed a colleague in February 2025 casting Musk’s use of his social media platform X to advertise the work of DOGE, his government efficiency initiative, as a criminal act. He likened it to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to exchange classified intelligence, according to the email declassified by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley.

Gounaud floated the legal theory that weekly emails that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent to federal employees asking them to list five accomplishments amounted to a petty crime.

“Happy to write the case opening and find a prosecutor (or at least try),” he said.

“And no, I’m not kidding,” the agent added.

Gounaud did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via LinkedIn.

Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2025

“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,” the agent wrote. “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.”

Gounaud said that Musk had violated federal statutes outlawing personal enrichment, because his account on X — a company he owns, may have been monetized — and blackmail for saying in his post that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Screenshot: FBI Email About Elon Musk (Credit: Senate Judiciary Committee)

Grassley declassified the email during a Tuesday hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel.

The Iowa Republican has spearheaded investigations into overt partisanship at the Bureau.

A 2004 law requires intelligence professionals to produce reporting “independent of political considerations.”

But a slew of documents declassified by Grassley’s committee and the Trump administration has revealed senior officials operating in the shadows in a way that violates that professional ethos.

“For almost a decade now, I’ve 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 for 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 he’s upfront and open so people can judge,” he said.

These documents have revealed new information about an FBI investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, a wide-reaching FBI probe into alleged ties between Trump and Russia. Newly declassified evidence has confirmed that investigation built on spun, cherrypicked and in some cases wholly manufactured raw intelligence reports, including the Steele dossier, a salacious opposition research document commissioned by Democrats during the 2016 election cycle.

Newly declassified documents have also revealed that the FBI smeared more than two dozen members of Congress, journalists and senior Trump administration officials as conduits of Russian disinformation in another operation codenamed “Round River” in order to paint derogatory information about former President Joe Biden and corruption in Ukraine as a Russian psyop.

Grassley’s office pointed out that targeting Musk’s status as a special government employee (SGE) represented a double standard. The DOJ declined to investigate Huma Abedin when she worked as an SGE for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while simultaneously working for the Clinton Foundation, a congressional aide said.

Other newly released documents have generated questions about why the FBI did not conduct a more fulsome investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server to exchange sensitive documents while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.

The FBI secured 600,000 missing emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server in the final days of the 2016 presidential election.

An email from former FBI Director James Comey to his media liaison Daniel Richman, released as an exhibit in the Department of Justice’s case against Comey in 2025, underscores the trove of evidence available to the bureau about Clinton’s apparent evasion of federal recordkeeping law that went unexamined.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: clinton; clintonfoundation; comey; crossfirehurricane; elonmusk; fbi; gounaud; jamescomey; kevingounaud; leftism; musk; roundriver; waronelonmusk
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1 posted on 09/15/2026 9:06:01 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Because surfing gay porn all day is classified so Elon was trying to steal classified information.


2 posted on 09/15/2026 9:06:15 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

3 posted on 09/15/2026 9:08:42 AM PDT by Jane Long (Jesus is Lord!)
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To: MtnClimber

the DOJ is America’s KGB

I don’t mean that as a slur, simply a statement of fact.

The highest domestic intelligence-gathering and prosecutorial agency in any huge, centralized government will ALWAYS become a political weapon and an unaccountable force unto itself.


4 posted on 09/15/2026 9:13:11 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: MtnClimber

former ...


5 posted on 09/15/2026 9:13:44 AM PDT by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))
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To: MtnClimber

So, has Kash fired Kevin Gounaud?


6 posted on 09/15/2026 9:14:10 AM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (Charlie Kirk's assassination / murder was our Fort Sumter moment. But only one side is fighting.)
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To: MtnClimber

I never really thought of FBI agents as regular government bureaucrats, but now I have to wonder. Do these guys not have to report on their activities. Are they so free and loose that it sounds strange to them when private sector employees are actually asked to account for their time and efforts?


7 posted on 09/15/2026 9:17:20 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: july4thfreedomfoundation

Does it matter? Literally the 2nd line from article posted says ‘Former Special Agent”. He appears gone from FBI, don’t care if Patel fired him as long as he is GONE.


8 posted on 09/15/2026 9:25:03 AM PDT by Emcane
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To: MtnClimber

Ahhhh, we’re supposed to feel sorry for him.

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5610AQFDvSaeuvTPEA/image-shrink_800/B56Z4dPSPYIYAg-/0/1778607006931?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=rXsCkts70pLAnXWUclNdyz3mxF8s9o0k7xfTc92mIik


9 posted on 09/15/2026 9:25:27 AM PDT by Red6
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To: MtnClimber

FORMER “special agent”. GOOD!!!!!!


10 posted on 09/15/2026 9:28:04 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Have you noticed how much immigrant anchor baby Congress Critters lie more than regular politicians)
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To: MtnClimber

FORMER “special agent”. GOOD!!!!!!


11 posted on 09/15/2026 9:28:07 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Have you noticed how much immigrant anchor baby Congress Critters lie more than regular politicians)
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To: MtnClimber

Trump had better not let anyone talk him out of pardoning EVERYONE even remotely associated with him past or present before leaving office including himself and all his family members.

Because the left is going to 100% come after everyone.


12 posted on 09/15/2026 9:29:52 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009
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To: FlingWingFlyer

and future head of the FBI under a future democrat


13 posted on 09/15/2026 9:30:44 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009
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To: GOPJ; poconopundit; Jane Long; Diana in Wisconsin; Grampa Dave; Godzilla; Vaduz; null and void; ...

Patriots, Call Congress
US Capitol switchboard
(202) 224-3121.

Call the White House
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
TTY/TTD Comments: 202-456-6213

Send a letter to the White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Message: Newly declassified documents reveal that the FBI:
<><> smeared more than two dozen members of Congress,
<><>and senior Trump administration officials
<><>the FBI invented a crime of being a conduit of Russian disinformation
<><>one FBI operation codenamed “Round River” painted Joe Biden as a Russian psyop.

Senate investigative committees pointed out that
<><>targeting Musk’s status as an SGE was a gross double standard.
<><>Huma Abedin escaped scrutiny when she worked as an SGE for Obama’s SOS Hillary Clinton,
<><>as Abedin simultaneously worked for the Clinton Foundation.
<><>the FBI did not hone in on Clinton’s use of a private email server
<><>as she handled and exchanged sensitive documents as SOS.

The FBI secured 600,000 missing emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server in the final days of the 2016 presidential election.

An email from former FBI Director James Comey to his media liaison Daniel Richman, released as an exhibit in the Department of Justice’s case against Comey in 2025, underscores the trove of evidence available to the bureau about Clinton’s apparent evasion of federal recordkeeping law that went unexamined.


14 posted on 09/15/2026 9:42:20 AM PDT by Liz (“The heavens declare the glory of Gd; the skies the work of His hands." (Psalm 19:1))
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To: MtnClimber

I TRIPLE GUARANTEE THAT AGENT ISN’T QUALIFIED TO POLISH ELON’S SHOES


15 posted on 09/15/2026 9:44:24 AM PDT by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: MtnClimber

Another day. Another totalitarian FBI monster. What’s new?


16 posted on 09/15/2026 9:47:11 AM PDT by Seruzawa ("The political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence." -Marx the Smarter (Groucho.))
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To: MtnClimber

Well, I guess the good news slant is this is the biggest crime this idiotic featherpacker could find.


17 posted on 09/15/2026 9:51:43 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (You choose; a world without dogs or a world without muslims.)
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To: Red6

LOL, I presume I am not the only one who looked at that image and thought “Total Corrupt Leftist Deep State Dirtbag”?

I don’t think that is the guy in question here, though. It appears that guy at the CNN article is named Brian Driscoll. He was acting FBI Director for a single month, apparently. He still looks like a “Total Corrupt Leftist Deep State Dirtbag” though.


18 posted on 09/15/2026 9:59:19 AM PDT by rlmorel (Factio Communistica Sinensis Delenda Est)
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To: z3n

Well by their gay tv shows they are warriors and save America every day. The females are all savants and ninjas and the guy are metrosexuals or stooges.


19 posted on 09/15/2026 10:03:27 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: MtnClimber

I hate to say it, but since I have been told that the FBI had an entire room full of Agents that did nothing but investigate Donald Trump since 2015, I am not surprised by the this email.

Honestly, do you think the FBI agents wanted to say that they conspired with an entire roomful of FBI agents to try to get dirt on a politician to influence elections and US policy?


20 posted on 09/15/2026 10:04:44 AM PDT by Pete Dovgan
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