Taking on the FBI, Trump Allies Single Out a Former Agent
WASHINGTON — Over 25 years as an FBI agent, Timothy R. Thibault reeled in big names while investigating public corruption, sending two Democratic congressmen to prison and overseeing sensitive inquiries into the Clinton Foundation and the former governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, another Democrat.
But now as Republicans and allies of former President Donald Trump work to undermine federal investigations into the former president, they have trained their sights on the little-known Thibault, who played a role in opening the Justice Department’s criminal inquiry into Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss. In their casting, Thibault, who retired last year, is the face of bias and misconduct at the bureau.
Powerful Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Gym Jordan of Ohio and Sen. Charles GrASSley of Iowa, demanded that Thibault testify before their committees. Citing an anonymous GOP official, Jordan’s panel in a news release last year denounced Thibault as “public enemy No. 1.”
But his story is more complicated than Republicans have made it out to be. As an investigator working on high-profile public corruption cases and international terrorism, he was well regarded, eventually rising to one of the most senior positions in the bureau’s Washington field office and winning internal awards for his professionalism.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/taking-fbi-trump-allies-single-120857616.html
