Tech mogul Peter Thiel’s dual identities: shady FBI informant and billionaire

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2023-10-20 11:40

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Original link: "Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel was an FBI informant"

Original author: Mattathias Schwartz, Insider

Translated by: Lüdòng Xiaogong, BlockBeats

Peter Thiel has held multiple roles over the years: Silicon Valley founder, major donor to Trump, supporter of cryptocurrency, and skeptic of democracy.

However, Thiel has another special identity that has been kept secret until now: an FBI informant.

Insider learned that in the summer of 2021, Thiel began providing information as a "Confidential Human Source" (CHS) to FBI agent Johnathan Buma, who specializes in investigating political corruption and foreign influence activities in Los Angeles.

Charles Johnson is a long-term partner of Thiel in the encryption industry and a notorious figure in the extreme right-wing movement sponsored by Thiel for a decade. In a statement to Insider, he said he helped recruit the billionaire as an informant by introducing him to Buma.

A knowledgeable source familiar with Thiel's relationship with the FBI confirmed Johnson's statement, telling Insider that Johnson facilitated the relationship between Thiel and Buma. Insider confirmed through another source that the FBI has officially registered Thiel as an informant.

Another source close to Thiel told Insider that while they couldn't confirm whether Thiel is CHS, he does occasionally speak with Buma. The source said that any assistance Thiel may provide to the FBI should be understood as part of Thiel's gradual distancing from Trump and the broader MAGA movement, which has strongly criticized the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Regularly provide valuable information

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a large network of informants to monitor organized crime, terrorism threats, extremist organizations, and other criminal and intelligence targets. According to the bureau's Confidential Human Resources Policy Guide, these sources of information are not just occasional tipsters.

This guide shows that confidential human resources "have established a relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which will forever affect the life of the person"; "(they) will become an 'FBI informant' or a 'former FBI informant', and in turn, his or her behavior or misconduct will be reflected in the FBI." Therefore, the process of recruiting and maintaining such informants is highly regulated and requires multiple layers of approval. Only those who can provide "valuable information...regularly" are granted CHS status, according to this policy.

In December 2016, President-elect Donald Trump shook hands with Peter Thiel at a meeting in Trump Tower. Years later, Thiel became a confidential informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A colleague said he was instructed not to report on his interactions with Trump or other American political figures. Image source: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

As a CHS, Thiel was assigned a code name and an internal serial number to track his reports. The information he passed on about foreign contacts and Silicon Valley conspiracies was reviewed and "verified" by his case agent and colleagues, or cross-checked with other sources.

Thiel did not respond to multiple requests for comment. After being informed that Insider was reporting on Thiel's relationship with the FBI, Thiel's spokesperson stopped responding.

The National Press Office of the FBI and the representative lawyers of Scott Horton and Johnathan Buma have declined to comment.

No report on political relations

Thiel is a citizen of Germany, the United States, and New Zealand; reportedly, as of last year, he was applying for a Maltese passport. In 2016, he donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign and endorsed him at the Republican National Convention. After Trump won the election, Thiel served on his transition team.

Johnson said he was also a source for Buma. He told Insider that he believed Thiel's report to the FBI was primarily focused on foreign contacts and foreign governments attempting to infiltrate Silicon Valley. Thiel had publicly called for an FBI investigation into Google's relationship with the Chinese government.

Johnson said that Thiel was instructed by the FBI not to report his interactions with Trump or other US political figures.

Many Thiel-backed politicians, including Trump, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, and former Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, have repeatedly attacked the Bureau and its leadership in public. In 2022, Vance's campaign and affiliated PAC received a total of $15 million in donations from Thiel, falsely claiming that the FBI illegally wiretapped Trump's phone. Vance accused the Bureau of "harassing faithful Christians" and vowed to block all of Joe Biden's Justice Department nominees in order to prevent Trump's prosecution. (Most of Thiel's donations occurred in early 2021, before Vance's campaign began and his many false claims during the race.)

During his time as an FBI informant, Thiel funded the campaign of current Ohio Senator JD Vance. Vance made some false and derogatory statements about the FBI. Image source: Anna Moneymaker/Getty

The Masters campaign received $20 million in support from Thiel, who supported a false conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021 riot was incited by FBI undercover agents and accused FBI agents executing the Mar-a-Lago search warrant of "pursuing him because they hate President Trump." (Like Vance, most of Thiel's donations to Masters occurred before Masters made his most inflammatory and baseless statements late in the campaign.)

According to reports, Thiel plans to sit on the sidelines during the 2024 election. Trump, Masters, and Vance have not responded to requests for comment.

Doing Business with the FBI

Thiel's business interests rely in part on the FBI and other government agencies as potential sources of revenue. He retains a 10% stake in Palantir, a data company that has sold over $1 billion in software and related services to the federal government, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. A financial analyst stated that evidence, including a $250 million contract signed with the US military in September, shows that Palantir is essentially "a government services provider." Last year, Forbes reported that Thiel also backed Boldend, a spyware company positioning itself as a competitor to Israel's NSO Group. The FBI purchased and tested NSO's products.

(According to reports, another entity co-founded by Thiel, Mithril Capital, became the focus of FBI attention in 2019, although the investigation appears to have yielded no results. The co-founders of Mithril did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI did not respond to questions about Mithril.)

Johnson exposed the relationship between Thiel and the FBI. He is a technology investor and far-right agitator with a long-standing relationship with Thiel and the MAGA political operatives network around Trump. He claimed to have co-founded Clearview, a facial recognition startup, and Traitwell, a genomics company. According to Forbes, he worked with Thiel to help screen and select senior staff for Trump during the transition period in 2017.

Johnson claimed to be an informant for the FBI in his lawsuit against Clearview's founder. He told Insider that he recruited Thiel as a CHS and introduced him to Buma, who was Johnson's FBI handler.

In 2021, Charles Johnson (left) with Congressman Matt Gaetz (right) and Gaetz's current wife Ginger Gaetz (center). Johnson told Insider that he facilitated contact between Thiel and an FBI agent who would become his handler. Image source: Charles Johnson

It is currently unclear whether Thiel is still an FBI CHS. Johnson told Insider that he believes this relationship has been severed, but he refused to provide detailed information. Buma wrote in his statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered to terminate contact with all sources of information by the end of 2022.

Johnson's relationship with Trump and Thiel is well documented. However, he is also someone who identifies as a "prankster" and has a history of spreading false information and defaming competitors. In this case, his claims have been corroborated by two other sources and partially supported by a third, who says that Thiel and Buma occasionally converse.