Timothy Thibault was reportedly escorted from his office by “headquarters-looking types”
A view of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters in Washington, DC, August 13, 2022 © AP / Jose Luis Magana
A senior FBI official accused of thwarting an investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged criminality has left the agency under mysterious circumstances, the Washington Times reported on Monday. The agent, Timothy Thibault, has been accused by Republicans of burying “verified and verifiable” information that could compromise the Biden family.
Thibault, an assistant special agent in charge of the bureau’s Washington, DC field office, abruptly left the agency last week. Two former FBI agents told the Washington Times that Thibault was forced to leave his post, with one of these former officials saying that he was escorted out of the office by two or three “headquarters-looking types.”
Despite the assertions of these former agents, the Washington Times noted that “it was not clear whether Mr. Thibault left on his own accord or was forced out of the bureau.”
Thibault had, however, been on leave for at least a month, during which time Republican lawmakers accused him of participating in a corrupt scheme to bury damaging information on President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, in the runup to the 2020 election.
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In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) claimed that Thibault ordered an investigation into “derogatory Hunter Biden reporting” closed in October 2020. Citing unnamed whistleblowers, Grassley said that Thibault closed the matter without providing a valid reason, and marked it in FBI systems “so that it could not be opened in the future.”
Earlier this summer, Thibault was hammered by Republicans for making derogatory social media posts about former President Donald Trump whilst working on an investigation into Trump’s political opponent’s son.
Hunter Biden was under investigation at the time for alleged tax offenses, and the New York Post published stories based on the contents of the president’s son’s laptop that same month. Files on the laptop, which have since been independently verified, implicated Hunter Biden in drug abuse, transactions with prostitutes, and numerous foreign graft schemes from which the Biden family stood to gain tens of millions of dollars.
Grassley’s letter also accused another FBI agent, an intelligence analyst named Brian Auten, of incorrectly labeling information about Hunter’s “criminal financial and related activity” as “disinformation.” The agency would later use the same term to warn Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg against allowing the laptop story to spread on his platform ahead of the 2020 election, Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan last week.
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During his recent testimony before the Senate, Wray downplayed Thibault’s role in the Hunter Biden laptop probe, but – before cutting his testimony short – told Republican Senator Joe Kennedy (Louisiana) that the contents of Grassley’s letter were “deeply troubling.” However, he did comment on whether the allegations within were true or false.
“Political bias should have no place at the FBI, and the effort to revive the FBI’s credibility can’t stop with his exit,” Grassley told the Washington Times. “We need accountability, which is why Congress must continue investigating.”
