DOJ launching grand jury investigation into Russiagate conspiracy allegations
Bondi ordered an unnamed federal prosecutor to initiate legal proceedings, and the prosecutor is expected to present department evidence to a grand jury to secure a potential indictment, according to a letter from Bondi reviewed by Fox News Digital and a source familiar with the investigation.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on the report of an investigation but said Bondi is taking the referrals from Gabbard "very seriously." The spokesperson said Bondi believed there is "clear cause for deep concern" and a need for the next steps.
The DOJ confirmed two weeks ago it received a criminal referral from Gabbard. The referral included a memorandum titled "Intelligence Community suppression of intelligence showing 'Russian and criminal actors did not impact' the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure" and asked that the DOJ open an investigation.
No charges have been brought at this stage against any defendants. A grand jury investigation is needed to secure an indictment against any potential suspects.
The revelation that the DOJ is moving forward with a grand jury probe comes after Gabbard declassified intelligence in July that shed new light on the Obama administration's determination that Russia sought to help Trump in the 2016 election.
Former President Barack Obama and his intelligence officials promoted a "contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn't," Gabbard said during a press briefing of the intelligence.
Among the declassified material was a meeting record revealing how Obama requested his deputies prepare an intelligence assessment in December 2016, after Trump had won the election, that detailed the "tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election." That intelligence assessment stressed that Russia's actions did not affect the outcome of the election but rather were intended to sow distrust in the democratic process.
It is unclear who is under investigation and what charges could be in play given statutes of limitations for much of the activity from nearly a decade ago have lapsed.
Former Obama intelligence officials, including John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey have drawn scrutiny from Trump officials for their involvement in developing intelligence that undermined Trump's 2016 victory.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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Six months later, though, the Proud Boys have been surprisingly quiet. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit that tracks political violence, the Proud Boys have been less active in 2025 than over the preceding several years. Since his release, Tarrio's most prominent action has been helping launch 'ICERAID,' a website that pays people in crypto in exchange for reporting undocumented immigrants. Tarrio, who did not respond to an interview request through a lawyer, also co-hosts frequent livestreams on X. In one episode of a livestream last month, Tarrio nursed a cigarette while a man who identified himself only as 'Patriot Rob' waxed nostalgic about how inescapable the Proud Boys once were. In 2020, members of the militant group showed up at anti-lockdown rallies across the country, clashed with racial-justice protesters, and earned a shout-out from Trump himself during a presidential debate. (The Proud Boys so frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., for various kinds of protests in 2020 that Politico wrote about their favorite bar.) Now, Patriot Rob said on the livestream, 'there's very few of us left.' It's unclear how many Proud Boy chapters there are today, but some seem to be defunct: Those in Philadelphia and Michigan have let their websites turn into dead links and stopped posting on Telegram, the social platform of choice for most Proud Boys. I reached out to 10 Proud Boy chapters and requested interviews. None was willing to speak with me. After I told a Miami chapter that I had spoken with experts on the current state of the Proud Boys, someone who identified himself only as 'Alex' responded: 'Experts' lol Experts at what? Sucking cock Y'all can go fuck yourselves!' The East Tennessee Chapter, perhaps mistaking my name for a woman's, replied by saying, 'We're going to request some nudes in order to confirm your identity 👌.' The Proud Boys have not disappeared. They have been spotted at a 'Tesla Takedown' event in Salem, Oregon; marched with anti-abortion activists in San Francisco; and confronted protesters outside of the 'Alligator Alcatraz' ICE facility. Other right-wing groups have been more active. After the Texas floods last month, a leader of the Patriot Front claimed that the extremist group was involved in recovery efforts to help ' European peoples.' Patriot Front, which has also held several marches across the country since the start of Trump's second term, remains a small organization. Estimates put its membership at 200 to 300 people, compared with the thousands that researchers believe are, or at least were, in the Proud Boys. On the whole, militia groups are 'keeping it low-key,' Amy Cooter, the deputy director and a co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, told me. Since the start of the year, ACLED has recorded 108 extremist protests nationwide—not even half as many as at this point in 2022. This is not entirely unexpected. As my colleague Adrienne LaFrance has reported, in the 1990s, a surge of militia activity and white nationalism appeared to die down after the Oklahoma City bombing—but those movements never disappeared; they simply moved underground. Today, part of the reason for the apparent decline is that even after Trump's pardons, far-right groups are still dealing with the hangover of January 6. Militia groups have always been relatively splintered, but the insurrection exacerbated the fissures. Some Oath Keeper groups are divided on whether their leader, Stewart Rhodes, went too far on January 6, when he rallied Oath Keepers to breach the Capitol, Cooter said. Some members have been vocal about leaving the organization, citing Rhodes's leadership. In 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center recorded five active Oath Keepers chapters, down from 70 in 2020. (The number of current chapters is not clear.) Meanwhile, the Proud Boys fractured in 2021, after Reuters uncovered court records indicating that Tarrio had served as an informant to local and federal law enforcement before the group was founded. ('I don't recall any of this,' Tarrio told Reuters at the time.) Many Proud Boys chapters disavowed him, including part of his own in Miami. The city now has two separate chapters, an anti-Tarrio and a pro-Tarrio one. In January, I emailed the Toledo Proud Boys chapter to ask about Tarrio. I received an unattributed reply expressing disappointment that Tarrio had 'turned his back and squealed on brothers.' I reached back out this week, and received a similar response: 'Tarrio is a rat, punk, and low life!' The respondent also said this: 'You breland, are exactly what President Trump said. .fake news! I'm sure you preferred the last potatoe!' (I asked if by 'the last potato,' the account meant Joe Biden. 'Ahhh yes. .SMH,' the respondent said. 'You know. .the illegitimate one! The stolen election one! The one who wandered around aimlessly!') The bigger reason that these far-right groups remain underground is that the Trump administration's aggressive agenda has left them with little to do. One of the motivating issues for the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other extremist groups is strong opposition to undocumented immigrants. After the presidential election, a leader of the Texas chapter of the Three Percenters, a militia group, reportedly wrote to Trump to offer manpower in enacting mass deportations. But ICE and other federal agencies are engaging in forceful action against immigrants backed by the state in a way that surpasses what the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys could ever do. ICE agents, not far-right militias, are the ones who have smashed through car windows, thrown people into unmarked vans, and detained them indefinitely. Even apart from immigration, 'groups are taking a hands-off approach right now because their interests are often aligned with the government,' Freddy Cruz, a researcher at the Western States Center, a nonprofit that tracks extremism, told me. The Proud Boys was started in 2016 in part to double down on traditional gender norms. Gavin McInnes, the group's founder, has described the Proud Boys as a 'pro-Western fraternity' for men who 'long for the days when girls were girls and men were men.' The Proud Boys' extreme pro-male views are less distinct than they once were, as MAGA has embraced Andrew Tate and other openly misogynistic figures of the so-called manosphere. As a result, the Proud Boys have one less point to rally around. Still, the Proud Boys and other right-wing militias might not stay underground forever. Under the right conditions, they could surge once again. 'These groups are really responsive to news cycles,' Cooter said. They have specific flash points—immigration, the Second Amendment, and supposed 'election integrity'—that can mobilize them in certain contexts, she explained. The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other established far-right groups still have infrastructure, a durable brand name, and the precedent that Trump might pardon them if things go awry. In May, Tarrio was reportedly invited to Mar-a-Lago, where he briefly spoke with Trump. Newer groups continue to organize. Patriot Front, for example, has teamed up with 'Active Clubs,' a loose network of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who run their own mixed-martial-arts fight clubs. Together, all of this could help give extremist groups a head start that they didn't have in the first Trump administration, when the Proud Boys and many other militia groups began to find their footing. The pieces are there, even if the moment isn't yet.
