Judicial Watch Sues FBI for Communications with Anti-Trump Organization

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for communications between former Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault and the anti-Trump organization American Oversight (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv–02556)).

Judicial Watch filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to respond to a January 31, 2025, FOIA request for:

Records and communications between Timothy Thibault, former [Assistant Special Agent, Washington Field Office] and the non-profit organization American Oversight, 1030 15th St. NW, B255, Washington, D.C. 20005, email domain: @americanoversight. The search terms for this request are a) Trump b) Electors c) Investigation d) election

In July 2022, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) reportedly warned then-Attorney General Merrick Garland that Thibault and an official in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, Richard Pilger, were “deeply involved in the decisions to open and pursue election-related investigations against President Trump. At the time, whistleblowers told Grassley that the Thibault-Pilger investigation’s predicating document was based on information from ‘liberal nonprofit American Oversight.’” Thibault retired in August 2022.

Earlier this year, Senators Grassley and Ron Johnson (R-WI) publicized records dating back to 2022 about Thibault’s targeting of Trump: 

Internal FBI emails and predicating documents provided to Grassley and released jointly by the two senators show Timothy Thibault, a former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) who was forced to retire from the Bureau after Grassley exposed his public anti-Trump bias, authored the initial language for what ultimately became Jack Smith’s federal case against Trump regarding the 2020 presidential election. Records show Thibault essentially opened and approved his own investigation.

American Oversight describes itself as “founded in 2017 in response to the unprecedented challenges that the Trump administration posed to our nation’s democratic ideals and institutions.…” Earlier this year, Politico described it as, “A left-leaning watchdog group … working to gather materials that could feed Congressional investigations into the Trump administration.”

“It’s a shame that we must sue to get these records about how the Biden gang at the FBI and DOJ tried to rig an election by jailing Trump for disputing the 2020 election,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It’s past time for these institutions to focus on transparency under law, so the American people can know the full truth on the lawfare attack perpetrated on Trump.”

Judicial Watch has actively pursued transparency for the lawfare waged against Trump.

In June 2025, Judicial Watch launched a related lawsuit against the Justice Department for records about the FBI’s investigation of Trump codenamed “Arctic Frost,” which was part of the Biden administration effort to prosecute and jail President Trump for disputing Biden’s controversial election victory (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02011)).

In March 2025, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for details of any investigations, inquiries, or referrals concerning potential misconduct of any person working for Special Counsel Jack Smith (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-00801)).

Also in March, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis was ordered to turn over 212 pages of records to a state court judge. The court also ordered Willis to detail how the records were found and the reason for withholding them from the public. The records were belatedly disclosed in response to a Judicial Watch request and lawsuit for communications with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. In January, Judicial Watch was awarded $21,578 for “attorney’s fees and costs” incurred in the case. The court previously found Willis in default and stated: “The Court finds Defendant [Willis, in her official capacity] is in default and has been since 11 April 2024” (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).

In January 2025, a federal court ordered the Justice Department to provide Judicial Watch information on communications between Special Counsel Jack Smith and Willis regarding the prosecution of then-former President Donald Trump. In May, the Justice Department was directed to search text messages from the Special Counsel’s Office for responsive records (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 23-cv-03110).

 In January 2025, records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) showed it and the FBI warning that law enforcement agencies should be prepared for a surge in threats from so-called Domestic Violence Extremists (DVEs) following the August 8, 2022, FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Homeland Security (1:22-cv-03275)).

In May 2024, Judicial Watch uncovered a recording of a phone message left by an FBI special agent for someone at the Secret Service in the context of the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-03147)).

In February 2024, the Justice Department asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that was targeting Trump and other Americans (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-01485)).

In August 2022, Judicial Watch successfully sued to unseal the search warrant affidavit used to justify the unprecedented raid on Trump’s home (U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant (No. 9:22-mj-08332)).

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/anti-trump-organization/