House Republicans are warning an ex-FBI official he’d better cooperate with them once they take over the chamber in January, or he can expect trouble.
Three top Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said in a letter to Timothy Thibault, who has been accused of misconduct, he will face a subpoena if he continues to refuse to cooperate with their oversight efforts once the GOP becomes the majority party.
The Epoch Times reports that Thibault, so far, has refused to voluntarily comply with requests for a transcribed interview despite his previous statement that he “welcome[s] any investigation.”
“Our requests, therefore, remain outstanding,” the Republicans said. “Your testimony is necessary for our oversight, and you can be assured that the Committee will continue to pursue this matter into the 118th Congress, including by compulsory process if necessary.”
The outlet noted:
If Thibault is subpoenaed, he would have to appear or he’d risk facing contempt of Congress charges.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and two members of the panel, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Mike Johnson (D-La.), sent the missive to Thibault.
The Republicans are investigating allegations from whistleblowers that Thibault, who was the assistant special agent-in-charge (ASAC) at the Washington Field Office before retiring in August, pressured agents to reclassify certain cases as “domestic violent extremism” even though there was “minimal, circumstantial evidence to support a reclassification.”
Other whistleblowers say that when the FBI in 2020 acquired information about Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, Thibault “ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines,” Senate Republicans have said.
Thibault and other officials also then tried to mark the matter in such a way that it could not be reopened in the future, according to the whistleblowers.
Whistleblowers also told the senators that an assessment was utilized by the FBI to improperly label another chunk of Hunter Biden information as disinformation, and that the information was siloed to only certain agents.
Thibault has also shared social media posts calling then-President Donald Trump “a psychologically broken, embittered, and deeply unhappy man” while telling Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) that her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, “was a disgrace.”
“If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are—and have been—institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a previous letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee.