An FBI agent who worked on the investigation led by then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller has alleged misconduct and political bias within the investigative team that examined President Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign, as reported[1] by The New York Post.
According to the whistleblower, members of the investigative team showed “overzealous thoughts” about targeting Trump and his associates, creating what the agent described as an environment driven by a “let’s get him” attitude during the nearly two-year probe into claims that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
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The agent, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, made the allegations during a December 2020 interview conducted as part of an internal FBI investigation examining potential misconduct by then-supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten.
Auten played a central role in the investigation of alleged Trump-Russia connections and later became associated with the controversy surrounding the suppression of information related to the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Details of the agent’s account were outlined in a letter sent Sunday night by Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.
In the letter, Grassley described the claims as evidence that internal political bias may have influenced decisions made during the Mueller investigation.
Grassley wrote that the information “confirms long-standing concerns that political bias rotted the decision-making process within the Mueller team … The American public deserves answers.”
Among the allegations raised by the whistleblower was the claim that the Special Counsel’s Office lacked authority to open an investigation into billionaire businessman Tom Barrack, who chaired Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee and is a longtime associate of the president.
The FBI’s Washington Field Office had previously declined to pursue an investigation into Barrack, who was accused of acting as an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates.
Despite that earlier decision, the Mueller team pursued charges, arrested Barrack, and detained him in jail. After a lengthy legal fight, a jury acquitted Barrack in 2022. He now serves as U.S. ambassador to Turkey.
The whistleblower also alleged that the investigative team repeatedly misused Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.
According to the agent, investigators continued renewing surveillance warrants targeting Trump campaign advisers despite objections raised by FBI personnel.
In one instance, the agent said a surveillance target was cooperating with investigators and that further monitoring would produce no additional evidence.
The agent said, “the target of the investigation [was] cooperating and the [surveillance warrant] 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 the investigators … there were no corroborating facts that tied [the target] to certain facts that we thought were originally true.”
When the investigative team attempted to pursue a fourth warrant against the same aide, the whistleblower identified several issues requiring corrections in the application.
According to the account, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith responded to the suggested changes by stating: “We can’t send this.” The Department of Justice later decided the corrections were unnecessary.
Clinesmith later pleaded guilty to altering an email connected to a FISA warrant application targeting Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
He received a sentence of 12 months probation and was allowed to keep his law license after a temporary suspension.
The whistleblower also accused Mueller prosecutor Zainab Ahmad of violating security protocols by transporting classified documents improperly.
According to the agent’s account, Ahmad brought classified materials to a meeting at the FBI’s Washington Field Office without following standard procedures.
The agent claimed Ahmad carried a classified notebook without a proper security bag and transported it from her residence to the meeting location.
Additional concerns raised by the whistleblower involved former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The agent alleged that McCabe referred to President Trump in a derogatory manner in an official interview record.
The whistleblower said Department of Justice prosecutors later attempted to persuade FBI agent Michelle Taylor to modify the tone of the document to remove the negative characterization.
According to the account, Taylor refused to alter the record and left the FBI shortly after completing her assignment with the Mueller team.
The agent also described what he called a “general atmosphere … of bias” within the investigative office, which he said was encouraged by prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky. According to the whistleblower, anti-Trump cartoons and caricatures were displayed in the office.
Zelinsky handled investigations into Trump associates, including Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Caputo, before resigning from the Justice Department in January 2025.
Mueller’s investigation concluded in March 2019 after costing taxpayers more than $30 million. The probe did not find evidence that Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
In May 2023, Special Counsel John Durham released a report examining the origins of the Russia investigation.
Durham described the inquiry as “seriously flawed” and concluded that the FBI “discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia.”
Grassley’s letter requests that Bondi and Patel produce all emails, internal files, and personnel records related to the whistleblower’s allegations by March 29.
