Breadcrumbs dropped last month by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, based on whistleblower reporting suggest FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina — a mainstay in the numerous get-Trump deep-state efforts — may have engaged not merely in misconduct, but potentially illegal activity.
In a March 15, 2026 letter to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, Grassley excerpted claims of misconduct allegedly undertaken by multiple members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. The Iowa senator had obtained a copy of a FD-302 interview summary that detailed the allegations, including claims that the government improperly sought to renew a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance order on former Trump campaign advisor Walid Phares.
According to Grassley’s letter, the agent interviewed for the FD-302 was involved in the Crosswind investigation, which was a subpart of Crossfire Hurricane. The Crosswind investigation reportedly focused on whether Phares violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Phares told RealClearInvestigations that the CIA issued a report in 2016 containing false allegations that he had accepted “a $10 million bribe from the Egyptian government intended for the Trump campaign during a meeting in Cairo.”
The FD-302 released last month details an FBI agent’s claim that a battle erupted in Special Counsel Mueller’s office concerning whether the team should seek a third renewal of the FISA warrant to surveil Phares. Then-FBI agent Andre Khoury said “No,” adding, according to the FD-302, that “they were getting all of the information they needed from interviews with the target of the investigation who was cooperating and providing everything they needed.” The FBI report continued by noting that Khoury said that FISA surveillance “would not give us anything more and there was nothing in the past FISA that aided the investigation other than to prove the Target was being honest with investigators.”
In his interview, the FBI agent explained that he too did not agree with renewing the FISA warrant, but “for different reasons,” stating:
As the investigation progressed, the facts that we originally thought meant one thing were learned to mean something else. Per reporting from another agency and what we learned from the investigation up to the point of the third renewal, there were no corroborating facts that tied Crosswind to certain facts that we thought were originally true. For instance, there was nothing confirming Crosswind received a large money payment and nothing confirming Crosswind had a meeting in another country for the purpose of the initial allegations.
The FBI agent interviewed for the FD-302 called the Special Counsel’s FISA renewal the “most egregious” of the misconduct, as the team sought to continue to surveil Phares “despite the change in our information.” That agent explained that he had made “specific corrections to the applications in numerous instances throughout the FISA certified copy process.” However, Kevin Clinesmith — who would later be convicted of making a false statement related to the Carter Page FISA application — said “we can’t send this to the DOJ.”
Instead, Clinesmith organized a meeting with the DOJ and led a discussion on the FISA renewal. During that meeting, those pushing for a renewal allegedly said the “statements they used in the FISA to describe the Target was ‘broad enough’ to cover the differing perspectives.”
In addition to the unnamed FBI agent interviewed for the FD-302 and Khoury, a third agent named Murphy opposed seeking a renewal of the FISA on Phares. Khoury and Murphy, along with others who expressed concerns about the handling of the investigation, were removed from Special Counsel Mueller’s team.
One FBI agent, however, was apparently willing to vouch for the facts detailed in the FISA application, with the FD-302 noting that Walter Giardina signed the FISA “as case agent.”
If the FISA applications submitted in the Carter Page investigation mirrored those used to obtain a renewal of the FISA surveillance order on Phares, that would mean Giardina declared under penalty of perjury that the information in the FISA application was “true and correct” and that “[t]he FBI has reviewed the verified application for accuracy in accordance with the [Woods] procedures.”
Giardina’s name should ring a familiar note because according to Grassley, whistleblowers have accused Giardina of falsely stating that the Steele Dossier was “corroborated as true.” Giardina allegedly also “stated openly his animosity toward President Trump and made known his personal motivation to investigate Trump.” Grassley further revealed that “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.”
According to Grassley, his office learned that Giardina’s involvement spanned everything from Crossfire Hurricane, to Arctic Frost, to Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, as well as the targeting of Dan Scavino, Roger Stone, and Peter Navarro. At a minimum, then, Giardina appears knee-deep in the swamp’s weaponization of the federal government. But last month’s release of the FD-302 suggests that when Giardina signed the FISA renewal application, he may have crossed criminal line.
To ascertain whether Giardina — and others — hold any criminal liability requires more information than currently known, however. And here, the FBI agent interviewed for the FD-302 provided a helpful road map, stating: “If possible, I would get a copy of the last FISA and a copy of the prediction: look at reporting from a couple of other US government agencies.” “Our understanding of things changed during the investigation,” the unnamed FBI agent explained, maintaining that “these three documents were disproven.” Yet, “[d]espite this, the team still went on with the third renewal of the FISA.”
Grassley has already requested the FBI provide him with that information. Better yet — or in addition to providing the Senate oversight committee with those documents — FBI Director Patel should ensure prosecutors reportedly looking into potential charges against those perpetrating the various get-Trump hoaxes, receive the details necessary to assess whether any crimes were committed when the Special Counsel’s office violated Phares’ constitutional rights by improperly obtaining the third FISA renewal.
