The FBI has been in crisis mode since Donald Trump returned to power.
Director Kash Patel’s house cleaning caught everyone’s attention.
But Peter Navarro just exposed one family secret that will have FBI directors breaking out in cold sweats.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree at the FBI
Peter Navarro knows a thing or two about FBI corruption after spending four months in federal prison for defending executive privilege.
The former Trump trade advisor just dropped a bombshell that connects decades of FBI misconduct through one twisted family tree.
And what he revealed shows the Bureau’s problems run deeper than anyone imagined.
In his new book "I Went To Prison So You Won’t Have To," Navarro exposes a chilling family connection between two of the FBI’s most corrupt agents.
The first bad apple is former FBI Deputy Director Larry Potts, who supervised the deadly Waco raid and got demoted after the Ruby Ridge disaster in the 1990s.
The second is Walter Giardina, one of several senior FBI officials that Director Kash Patel fired in August 2025 after Senate whistleblower complaints about his role in targeting Trump.
Here’s the kicker that nobody saw coming – Potts is Giardina’s father-in-law.
Two generations of FBI weaponization
Larry Potts made his mark in FBI history for all the wrong reasons during the early 1990s.
As the Bureau’s second-in-command, Potts was in the oversight chain when the FBI abandoned its standard deadly-force policy at Ruby Ridge.
Instead of the normal rules requiring imminent threat before using lethal force, the FBI issued a license to kill with new "rules of engagement."
The order declared that "any armed adult male observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be shot."
Within 24 hours, Randy Weaver’s 14-year-old son was dead, along with Vicki Weaver, who was killed while holding her infant daughter.
Barely a year later came Waco, where the FBI’s 51-day siege with armored vehicles and CS gas ended in a fire that killed 76 people, including children.
FBI Director Louis Freeh eventually demoted Potts, who retired in 1997.
But not before "Pottsgate" – where senior managers falsified paperwork to bill the Bureau for Potts’ lavish retirement dinner by creating a fake "ethics conference."
When exposed, the brass got slaps on the wrist while rank-and-file agents fumed about the double standard.
The son-in-law continues the family tradition
Walter Giardina married Potts’ daughter in 2000 and joined the FBI five years later.
His career reads like a roadmap of every weaponized justice campaign against Donald Trump from 2016 to 2024.
According to whistleblower disclosures released by Senator Chuck Grassley, Giardina vouched for the Steele dossier’s credibility inside the Bureau even as its claims collapsed.
That internal stamp of approval fed into the Carter Page FISA warrant and launched Crossfire Hurricane, which became the foundation for Robert Mueller’s two-year, $30 million witch hunt.
Giardina served on Mueller’s team, where whistleblowers later accused him of wiping his Bureau-issued laptop outside protocol, effectively destroying federal records.
Next came the "Egypt Hoax" probe into alleged Egyptian funds flowing to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Investigators never found evidence, but the details mysteriously leaked in August 2024 – just 90 days before the election.
Senate records also tie Giardina to Operation Arctic Frost, the January 6 sweep that targeted Trump advisers like Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, and Rudy Giuliani with phones seized and search warrants executed.
Giardina’s circus arrest of Peter Navarro
Then Giardina set his sights on Peter Navarro.
Internal emails released by Senator Grassley show Giardina circulated DOJ’s indictment plan against Navarro in May 2022, noting that "media attention is anticipated."
Days later, Giardina staged Navarro’s airport arrest at Reagan National – complete with handcuffs, leg irons, and a perp walk that dragged Navarro’s fiancée into the spectacle for the cameras.
Even Obama-appointed Judge Amit Mehta later asked in open court why Navarro wasn’t permitted to self-surrender like other non-violent defendants.
The answer was obvious – Giardina wanted the media circus.
Two decades of the same FBI rot
Look at the pattern here and try not to get furious.
Robert Mueller, who once ran the FBI, put Giardina on his Special Counsel team.
In Mueller’s 2001 confirmation hearing, Senator Chuck Grassley cited Larry Potts as the poster child for toxic FBI culture.
Today, Grassley is citing whistleblowers who expose abuses tied to Potts’ son-in-law Giardina.
Twenty years later, Grassley is still fighting the same battles against the same corrupt Bureau culture – now with the next generation of the same corrupt family.
Here’s what this really shows – the FBI’s corruption isn’t some recent development that started with Trump.
This is generational rot that gets passed down like a family business.
You’ve got a father-in-law who supervised deadly raids and falsified records to pay for retirement parties.
Now his son-in-law is wiping laptops, targeting political opponents, and staging circus arrests for the cameras.
The apple didn’t just fall close to the tree – it landed in the exact same corrupt spot and started growing its own poisonous branches.
For families who work for a living and follow the rules, this should make your blood boil.
These people created their own dynasty of weaponized justice where normal Americans get the handcuffs and leg irons while the corrupt brass gets slaps on the wrist.
Navarro spent four months in federal prison for defending executive privilege while these FBI goons destroyed evidence and falsified records with zero consequences.
If they can come for a Trump advisor, a war hero, and a former White House official, they can come for any of us.
Director Kash Patel fired Giardina, but that’s just the beginning.
The American people deserve a full investigation into this FBI crime family and everyone who protected them for decades.
¹ Peter Navarro, "PETER NAVARRO: At The FBI, The Rotten Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree," The Daily Caller, September 03, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
