They call Walter Giardina a Marine hero. The media portrayed him as a martyr in FBI Director Kash Patel’s recent “purge” of politicized FBI agents.
In my new book, I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To, I call Giardina something else: the tip of the spear in a weaponized FBI campaign to destroy Donald Trump — and a disgraced FBI agent who personally targeted me and my fiancée.
I don’t use “weaponized” lightly. I was there. I lived it. I still feel the cold steel of the handcuffs Giardina, and his gaggle of armed agents, slapped on me at Reagan National Airport. I will never forget the sight of my fiancée being perp-walked out of that same terminal as part of the circus arrest Giardina staged for maximum humiliation – nor will I forgive Giardina for that.
Giardina’s Steele Dossier, Russia Hoax Catalyst
Giardina wasn’t just another FBI agent “doing his job.” He was the Bureau’s go-to guy for virtually every politically loaded, lawfare gambit targeting Trump and his allies.
Giardina’s steep fall started with the single most destructive lie in modern American politics — the Russia Hoax. In 2016, Giardina was reportedly one of the very first FBI officials to review the Steele dossier — a fetid pile of Clinton-funded faux opposition research dressed up as intelligence.
Whistleblowers allege Giardina told colleagues the Steele dossier was “corroborated” even though its most explosive claims were unverified — and later proved false. It was a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, plain and simple. I believe that Giardina either refused or didn’t want to see that it was a hoax.
Giardina’s internal stamp of credibility for the Steele dossier helped catalyze the FBI’s entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation — the 2016 counterintelligence probe into whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russia.
Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele arrives at the High Court in London on July 24, 2020. (TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
While Crossfire Hurricane started with a whimper, it turned into a big lawfare bang once the FBI and Giardina swallowed Christopher Steele’s Clinton-funded dossier. That credibility stamp was central to justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant used to secretly monitor Trump adviser Carter Page, giving the Bureau a legal pretext to spy on a U.S. citizen tied to the campaign.
From there, the Steele Dossier fed directly into the Mueller Special Counsel, which would ultimately ensnare a very good man and ultimate patriot and warrior, Michael Flynn.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz would blow the lid off this Crossfire Hurricane corruption in 2019. His report exposed 17 major errors and omissions in the FISA applications — from overstating Steele’s credibility, to hiding exculpatory evidence, to concealing that Steele’s own sources had disavowed parts of the dossier.
This wasn’t a good-faith investigation gone bad. It was the tip of the weaponized justice spear — Clinton oppo research laundered through the FBI, with Giardina carrying it into case files that would haunt Trump’s presidency.
Neither Page nor Flynn was ever convicted of any Russia-related crime. Yet, both were saddled with millions in legal fees. This was financial ruin inflicted through lawfare without a single valid charge.
Former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn leaves after the delay in his sentencing hearing at the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, December 18, 2018. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The faux scandal forced Mike’s resignation just weeks into the administration. It was a catastrophic event for the nascent Trump administration – I know, I was there in the White House.
Flynn’s departure would deprive newly elected President Donald Trump of a battle-tested National Security Advisor. Even worse, it saddled him instead with far less capable successors — first the globalist lightweight H.R. McMaster and later the beyond treacherous John Bolton.
The Mueller Witch Hunt
Crossfire Hurricane would metastasize into the two-year Mueller Special Counsel Witch Hunt in 2017. That probe, formally titled the Special Counsel’s Office to Investigate Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, was launched under former FBI Director Robert Mueller, with a sweeping mandate: to examine alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, potential obstruction of justice, and a raft of spinoff matters.
It was a $30 million weaponized lawfare dragnet with 2,800 subpoenas, 500 witnesses, and endless leaks. And what sat at the heart of Mueller’s team? The same Steele Dossier rot. And who was a key member of Mueller’s investigative team? Walter Giardina.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller speaks on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election on May 29, 2019, in Washington, DC. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Whistleblowers say Giardina’s conduct inside the Special Counsel’s team raised red flags. They accuse him of wiping his assigned FBI laptop outside official protocol — destroying government records the American people had a right to see. Any internal communications, draft reports, case notes, or classified materials linked to his work thereby vanished forever — gone before the Inspector General or Congress could review them.
If Giardina did indeed intentionally wipe his computer — shades of Hillary Clinton, who infamously deleted thousands of emails from her private server while under federal investigation — he possibly could have been charged with felonious destruction of potential evidence in one of the most politically charged investigations in modern history.
Even as prosecutors admitted behind closed doors that they had no evidence of conspiracy, the circus rolled on. The 448-page Mueller report ultimately conceded what Trump had said from day one: no collusion.
And here’s the stunningly ironic post-script: Internal FBI records show Giardina was given a Special Counsel’s Office award for his work — underscoring the degree to which the Bureau rewarded those at the center of politically charged investigations, even when their actions may have skirted proper record-keeping rules.
Photo of the FBI award given to Walter Giardina. (Image from Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley’s letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, on June 5, 2025)
‘Crimson River’ a.k.a. ‘Red Maasari’: A Study in Election Interference
While the Steele dossier alleged Russian kompromat and covert influence over Trump, the FBI’s Crimson River case, which was later renamed Red Maasari, pursued an entirely different thread — the claim that the Egyptian government funneled $10 million into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The Crimson River investigation was opened in 2017 and ran simultaneously with Crossfire Hurricane, underscoring how the FBI was pulling out all stops in pursuing Trump. Whistleblowers told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that both investigations shared two features: Giardina’s involvement at the case-agent level and a “Prohibited Access” classification for the federal records accrued, which sharply limited any oversight of these investigations.
Neither probe ever produced substantiated evidence, yet together they exemplified how politically explosive allegations against Trump were fast-tracked into FBI case files and then walled off from normal review.
The ultimate lawfare payoff came in August 2024, when details of the Crimson River/Red Maasari case were conveniently leaked to the Washington Post just 90 days before the presidential election. The leak achieved exactly what such leaks are designed to do — dominate the headlines, poison the well, and force Trump onto the defensive at the most critical moment of the campaign.
An Emoluments Clause Lacking a Predicate
Whistleblowers also informed Sen. Grassley that Giardina urged agents to launch a new line of investigation under the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause — a provision intended to prevent federal officials from personally profiting from gifts, payments, or favors from foreign governments. In theory, it’s a legitimate safeguard. In practice, under Giardina’s direction, I believe it became a political fishing license, with agents specifically instructed by Giardina to “dig around.”
The push came in 2018–2019, right as Democratic lawmakers and allied watchdog groups were filing civil lawsuits and flooding the media with stories about foreign officials paying to stay at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. The Russia-Hoax machinery was already in full throttle, and the Mueller probe was in full swing—making the Emoluments Clause the perfect next political hook.
Like the other Trump operations, the effect of Giardina’s “dig around” Emoluments Clause fishing expedition was to keep President Trump under perpetual investigation and to feed a steady trickle of damaging “leaks” to the press. And, like the other investigations, Walter Giardina was a key player.
The Chilling Effects of Arctic Frost
Giardina also played a role in Operation Arctic Frost. This was the January 6 related probe launched in April 2022 that was “prioritized over all others” inside the Washington Field Office.
Artic Frost was a full-throttle, coast-to-coast operation into the so-called “fake electors” theory — a legal dispute that the FBI and DOJ treated as if it were a criminal conspiracy; and this Op had both Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence clearly in its crosshairs, seizing both men’s phones and interrogating dozens of.
Search warrants were executed in multiple states, subpoenas landed on state officials, and dozens of Trump and Pence aides were hauled in for questioning. It was lawfare on steroids – weaponized justice going in for the Trump kill.
Operation Arctic Frost would indeed reach deep into Trump’s orbit. According to whistleblower disclosures and Senate Judiciary records, the FBI pursued the government-issued devices and communications of numerous Trump associates. Search warrants were drafted for these individuals, and investigators launched interviews and subpoenas aimed at securing evidence—or at least narratives—that could justify the broader “fake electors” effort.
Ultimately, Arctic Frost became the bridge that handed its files and targets directly to Special Counsel Jack Smith, ensuring that the lawfare that began with Steele, Crossfire Hurricane, Mueller, and Crimson River/Red Maasari rolled seamlessly forward into 2023 and beyond.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro speaks at a White House press conference on March 27, 2020, as President Donald Trump listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Target: Navarro
In early 2022, the Democrat-controlled January 6 Committee subpoenaed me. I refused their witch hunt, citing executive privilege — not as a tactic, but because it has long been the Department of Justice’s settled policy that senior White House advisers to the president have absolute testimonial immunity from compelled congressional testimony about their official duties.
This protection exists to preserve what the Supreme Court calls candor and confidentiality in presidential communications. This is the very essence of George Washington’s doctrine of executive privilege, first asserted in 1796 to protect sensitive deliberations from legislative intrusion.
But in my case, a partisan and weaponized Biden DOJ turned its own policy on its head and indicted me anyway. I was Giardina’s huckleberry, and he went after me like a jackal — discarding over two centuries of Constitutional separation of powers protection to score a political hit.
On May 19, 2022, at 4:50 PM, Giardina emailed a group of FBI agents with the news: DOJ wanted to indict me within two weeks. His email read like a military op order: find my location, get my phone and iCloud data, plan the “knock-and-talk,” time the arrest. Every detail accounted for.
FBI email chain concerning Navarro. Highlight emphasis added. (Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley’s report)
By May 24, the plan was locked: indictment on June 2, arrest on June 3 or June 7. “Media attention is anticipated,” one of the emails noted. They weren’t just planning an arrest — they were scripting a Perp Walk Media Circus.
Internal FBI emails later released by Sen. Grassley would show that after Walter Giardina updated everyone on the DOJ’s indictment plan, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault replied, “Wow. Great stuff” — a revealing glimpse of the partisan enthusiasm behind the operation.
FBI email chain concerning Navarro. Highlight emphasis added. (Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley’s report)
FBI Public Affairs Officer Samantha Shero was included in the planning discussions about media handling for my arrest, according to internal Bureau emails released by Sen. Grassley. Those emails show the FBI anticipated media coverage and coordinated its public narrative in advance. Stories would be already being written before I was anywhere near a camera and could say a single word in my defense.
FBI email chain concerning Navarro. Highlight emphasis added. (Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley’s report)
FBI email chain concerning Navarro. (Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley’s report)
June 3, 2022. Reagan National Airport. I was boarding a flight to Nashville for a TV appearance on the Mike Huckabee show when the FBI show began. In the gangway, Giardina and four armed FBI agents surrounded me and my fiancée. They slapped on handcuffs, hustled me off the jetway, and denied me a phone call to my lawyer.
Here’s what the public didn’t know – and what Giardina should never be forgiven for: My fiancée, who was traveling with me, was perp-walked out of the terminal in full view of bystanders and cameras. My sweet pixie wasn’t a target, a suspect, or even a witness. She was just more Giardina collateral damage.
Even the Obama-appointed judge in my case, Amit Mehta – no friend of mine at trial — couldn’t believe my circus arrest. At a July 2022 hearing, he said he was “surprised” and “curious” why I wasn’t allowed to self-surrender — the standard in nonviolent white-collar cases.
Translation: there was no operational reason for the airport ambush. Only political theater. This wasn’t law enforcement — it was lawfare and information warfare.
Former Trump White House Advisor Peter Navarro talks to the media as he leaves federal court on June 3, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
If They’re Not Held Accountable, They’ll Do It Again
Like a Forrest Gump from Hades, Giardina seemingly popped up everywhere there were federal lawfare efforts to take down Donald Trump and his associates. From the Steele Dossier and Mueller probe to Crimson River/Red Maasari, the Emoluments Clause caper, Artic Frost, and my own indictment, arrest, and conviction, Giardina was there.
That’s why firing is not good enough. That’s why Giardina — along with a long list of alleged lawfare perpetrators — must be investigated. And if any of these investigations find wrongdoing, the lawfare insurrectionists must be held accountable. Because if they are not, they will do it again.
That’s the real meaning behind the title of my new book, I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To. I am your wakeup call. If they can come for me, they can come for you.
By shining a bright light on bad actors like Giardina, the purpose of my new book is to rally the American people to demand justice and put an end to the Democrats’ lawfare once and for all. So, please buy I Went To Prison So You Won’t Have To, read it, get mad, give it to a friend, and then help us get even.
Because yes, and it is worth repeating, if we don’t hold these lawfare scoundrels accountable, they will do it again.
Peter Navarro served four months in a federal prison in defense of the Constitution. His new book, I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To: A Love and Lawfare Story in Trump Land, is available now for pre-order in hardcover and eBook.
Peter Navarro walks off stage with his fiancée Bonnie Brenner on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
