Why did the FBI want ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams’ twitter data? – Reason Magazine

FOIA The cartoonist caught the FBI’s attention over a bizarre scheme involving Matt Gaetz, a CIA agent held captive in Iran, and a Florida fraudster. Matthew Petti | 6.1.2026 4:53 PM (Illustration: DAN ROSENSTRAUCH/TNS/Newscom/Rokas Tenys/Dreamstime) Most Americans knew the late Scott Adams for Dilbert , his beloved comic strip about an office worker and his dimwitted colleagues. Later in life, Adams became known as a kind of right-wing shock jockey . But the cartoonist caught the FBI’s attention for something a little bit different: the sex crimes investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fl.) and a bizarre blackmail scheme that grew out of it. The FBI released its files on Adams last week, five months after his death, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Reason . The records include the heavily redacted results of a background check and a request to Twitter—the social media network later renamed X—to preserve Adams’ account data, including his private messages. The investigation into Adams seems to have begun in the spring of 2021, when he was entangled in the Gaetz scandal. On March 30, 2021, The New York Times reported that Gaetz was under federal investigation for having sex
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