Grassley released emails from June 2019 involving an unidentified FBI agent and two DOJ officials, Richard Pilger, then of the Public Integrity Section, and J.P. Cooney, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The emails reportedly show Pilger and Cooney rejecting the agent’s questions regarding payments used to fund research for the Steele dossier, which was prepared by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
The Steele dossier contained unverified allegations about then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and potential links to Russia. The DNC and Clinton campaign retained the research firm Fusion GPS to compile the dossier, and the payments were reported as legal expenses at the time.
According to the whistleblower, the FBI agent raised concerns that Pilger’s communications were intended to discourage further questioning about the funding. In a note to a supervisor, the agent stated that they had never experienced such a response in their career.
Pilger later served as director of the Justice Department’s Election Crimes Branch and played a role in the Arctic Frost investigation following the 2020 election. Cooney acted as deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith during that investigation.
Sen. Grassley has requested additional records and emails from Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel related to the earlier inquiry into DNC and Clinton campaign payments to Fusion GPS. He argued that these materials could shed light on whether Justice Department officials influenced the decision to limit the investigation.
In the released emails, Pilger reportedly criticized the agent for bias and “a rush to judgment,” while Cooney noted that proving a false reporting case would be difficult given that Fusion GPS was retained through the campaign’s law firm rather than the campaign itself.
The Steele dossier, which was circulated prior to the 2016 election, was later discredited as containing unverified claims. While the DNC and Clinton campaign were not criminally investigated for the underlying payments, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) later imposed civil fines: $105,000 on the DNC and $8,000 on the Clinton campaign for reporting errors related to more than $1 million in payments to Perkins Coie, the law firm that hired Fusion GPS.
The Senate’s review of these events aims to clarify how Justice Department officials handled inquiries related to campaign-related funding and to assess whether procedures were followed appropriately.