Internal FBI emails reveal that rogue agents and prosecutors in the Biden DOJ were looking for ways to pile on new criminal charges against Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot -- this time over his involvement with the J6 prisoner choir, based on a single partisan news article.
The 2023 emails obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and revealed exclusively to The Post, are an example of the nitpicking malice of anti-Trump lawfare that tainted special counsel Jack Smith's investigation during Joe Biden's presidency.
"Can we do some work to nail down Trump's role in this," writes prosecutor JP Cooney to DOJ colleagues on March 8, 2023, in an email with the subject line "J6 Prisoner Choir/DJT" and an attached Forbes.com article titled "Trump Collaborates On Song With Jan. 6 DefendantsTrump And Jan. 6 Prisoners Collaborate On New Song Called 'Justice For All.' "
Cooney was a deputy special counsel who worked on both the Robert Mueller and Jack Smith get-Trump special counsel investigations.
"According to this Forbes article, Trump recorded the Pledge of Allegiance at MAL [Mar a Lago] and Kash Patel [Now FBI director] and Ed Henry [former Fox News host] were also involved," Cooney wrote in the email chain.
"The profits are routed to an LLC run by Henry, and proceeds are intended for families of incarcerated J6 defendants -- but there is apparently a vetting process that excludes families of defendants who assaulted police officers.
"I asked Ahmed [likely prosecutor Ahmed Baset, who was fired earlier this month] to preserve this last night. I'll talk to Maria/Erin and Julia about doing some follow up here to nail down Trump's role."
Cooney also instructed colleagues to look at starting "some process on Ed Henry's LLC," presumably a legal process such as a subpoena, search warrant or other court-authorized actions to gather evidence.
His email was forwarded to eight agents and DOJ staff, including notorious anti-Trump FBI Special Agent Walter Giardina, who responded two days later to say he was investigating the claims in the Forbes article about Trump and the J6 prisoner choir: "Esther and I are working on this today. We're going to put together our findings at 2 and get something to you shortly after that."
Giardina was "Agent Zero" in a lot of overzealous FBI actions involving Trump and his allies, including the investigation of Trump White House advisor Dr. Peter Navarro on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to appear before the House committee investigating the J6 riot.
It was Giardina's FBI team that arrested Navarro as he was about to board a plane at Reagan National Airport in 2022, put him in leg irons and threw him in jail instead of simply issuing a summons for him to come to court, as the federal judge overseeing the case later said while criticizing the heavy-handedness.
Giardina was also significantly involved in Operation Crossfire Hurricane (the debunked Russia collusion investigation against Trump), Special Counsel Mueller's investigation and cases involving Trump allies Dan Scavino and Roger Stone, as well as the Hillary Clinton emails case.
According to Sen. Grassley, Giardina was an "initial recipient of the Steele Dossier" and falsely claimed that the bogus Clinton campaign smear sheet against Trump was corroborated as "true."
Giardina also "electronically wiped the laptop he was assigned while working for Special Counsel Mueller outside of established protocol for record preservation, raising the possibility that he destroyed government records."
Whistleblowers have told Grassley that Giardina "openly stated his desire to investigate Trump, even if it meant false predication" because of his hostility to the past and future president.
Grassley believes this email chain is another "clear example" of how the federal law enforcement apparatus was weaponized to try to "get Trump" at all costs.
"Instead of focusing on DOJ and FBI's core law enforcement responsibilities," Grassley told the Post, "partisan prosecutors and agents were surfing the web to find any shred of information they could use to spin another baseless case against Trump. Their actions are a disservice to Americans, who pay their salaries and depend on DOJ and FBI to keep them safe."
Grassley, known as the "patron saint of whistleblowers," is working with FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino to ferret out the lawfare correspondence hidden at FBI headquarters and finger the culprits behind the anti-Trump lawfare of the past eight years.
Patel also this week gave Grassley an FBI intelligence report alleging Chinese involvement in forging American driver's licenses intended to be used for fake mail-in ballots supporting Biden in the 2020 election.
Whistleblowers had told Grassley that the FBI memo had been recalled after it was issued and no further action was taken, despite the fact that Customs and Border Protection seized almost 20,000 fake licenses three months before the election.
"Thanks to the oversight work and partnership of Chairman Grassley, the FBI continues to provide unprecedented transparency," Patel told Just the News, which first reported on the CCP election plot.
"To that end, we have located documents Chairman Grassley requested."
"My investigative work won't rest," Grassley told the Senate on Wednesday. "There'll be much more coming from this senator."
Among the charges Smith, Cooney, Giardina and pals were trying to drum up against Trump over his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, were conspiracy to defraud the US, obstruction of an official proceeding and potential violations of the Insurrection Act.
Ultimately, they failed.
Trump comprehensively won the 2024 election, Smith was forced to drop the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases against him -- and Trump fired his team, targeted their law firms and pardoned every Jan. 6 defendant.