(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel and one-time Trump ally was outed as an FBI informant in a Thursday article by Business Insider.
Citing fellow FBI informant and former Thiel associate Charles Johnson, the Business Insider article said Thiel started working with the feds in the summer of 2021.
“Insider was able to confirm through an additional source that the FBI added Thiel to its formal roster of registered informants,” the article said, adding that it’s “unclear” whether Thiel is still an informant.
“As a [confidential human source], Thiel was assigned a code name and an internal serial number to track his reporting. The information he passed on about foreign contacts and Silicon Valley intrigue was reviewed and ‘validated,’ or cross-checked against other sources, by his case agents and their colleagues,” the article added.
Another source reportedly said that Thiel’s relationship with the FBI should be understood as part of him gradual separating from Trump and the broader MAGA movement, which has vigorously criticized the FBI and other federal law-enforcement agencies.
Indeed, Thiel has tentatively signaled support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary—though that was earlier this year, before the DeSantis campaign fell flat on its face.
However, the article claimed that Thiel was specifically instructed by the FBI not to report on his interactions with Donald trump or other U.S. political figures. Instead, Thiel was purportedly working with the feds to thwart attempts by foreign governments to penetrate Silicon Valley.
The revelation that Thiel is an FBI informant stems from a whistleblower statement filed by FBI special agent Jonathan Buma, who has accused the bureau of suppressing investigations into ties between Rudy Giuliani and Russian intelligence assets.
Buma said in a July statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of his informants told him that Fuks had paid Giuliani $300,000 to serve as his U.S. lobbyist. But Buma’s bosses at the FBI prevented him from pursuing the matter, he said.
Johnson—the man who outed Thiel as a fed—told Business Insider that he’s the informant code-named “Genius” in Buma’s whistleblower statement. The statement does not mention Thiel.
In a separate statement to reporter Arthur Bloom, Johnson said Thiel’s FBI code-name is the “Philosopher.”
Johnson further said that he came forward with this information, in part, because Thiel is ignoring the corruption of his friend and business partner, Elon Musk.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
