Three FBI whistleblowers testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee Thursday and described abuses they witnessed at the bureau and how the FBI retaliates against its employees who speak out against the agency.
Two current and former agents testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Weaponization of the Federal Government subcommittee and made several remarkable claims.
FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, FBI Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen and former FBI Special Agent Stephen Friend testified that the bureau suspended or revoked their security clearances.
Additionally, they testified the bureau restricted them from seeking outside employment to support themselves and their families during their unpaid suspensions after they filed whistleblower disclosures to Congress about the agency.
The FBI told The Washington Times, “The FBI’s mission is to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people. The FBI has not and will not retaliate against individuals who make protected whistleblower disclosures.”
Mr. Friend said he “made protected whistleblower disclosures to my immediate supervisor, assistant special agents in charge and special agent in charge about my concerns regarding Jan. 6 investigations assigned to my office.”
“I believe our departures from case management rules established in the FBI as domestic investigations and Operations Guide could have undermined potentially righteous prosecutions and may have been part of an effort to inflate the FBI statistics on domestic extremism,” he said.
Mr. Friend also testified that he voiced concerns that the FBI’s use of SWAT and large-scale arrest operations to apprehend suspects accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors and are represented by counsel and who pledge to cooperate with the federal authorities in the event of criminal charges created an unnecessary risk to FBI personnel and public safety.
“At each level of my chain of command, leadership cautioned that despite my exemplary work performance, whistleblowing placed my otherwise bright future with the FBI at risk,” he said.
Mr. Friend accused the bureau of leaking his private medical information “in violation of HIPAA” to a reporter at The New York Times.
According to Mr. Friend, the FBI for several months refused to furnish all his training records, which were necessary to obtain a private investigator and firearms licenses in Florida. After releasing some of the records, he said, the FBI would not confirm their legitimacy to the Florida Department of Agriculture, rendering the few documents it provided “practically useless.”
He added, “The FBI denied my request to seek outside employment in obvious attempt to deprive me of the ability to support my family. Finally, the FBI Inspection Division imposed an illegal gag order in an attempt to prevent me from communicating with my family and attorneys.”
The FBI sent a letter to the committee about the revocations of two of the FBI whistleblowers on Wednesday and said Mr. Friend had his security clearance revoked because he “refused to participate in the execution of a court authorized search and arrest of a criminal subject.”
The letter continued, “During his communications with his management about his refusal to participate, he espoused an alternative narrative about the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
“On September 3, 2022, Mr. Friend entered FBI space and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems to an unauthorized removable flash drive. The FBI then required Mr. Friend to attend a Security Awareness Briefing (SAB) regarding his actions, but he refused to do so,” the letter stated.
Mr. Friend disputed these assertions before the panel Thursday, saying he did not refuse to attend the briefing but asked for a lawyer to be present and was denied.
He informed committee staffers that he could not attend the briefing because he was suspended before the scheduled date.
Mr. Friend also disputed the bureau’s claim that he participated in an interview with a Russian government news agency without the bureau’s authorization. But he said his comments were taken from other sources and used by Russia Today (now known as RT) without his knowledge.
Mr. Allen, who told the committee he held a top secret security clearance since 2001 and was employee of the year in 2019, stated that the FBI suspended his security clearance after the bureau accused him of having conspiratorial views of Jan. 6, 2021, and of sympathizing with criminal conduct.
According to the FBI’s letter to Congress, in September 2021, Mr. Allen sent an email using his FBI email account to multiple colleagues that contained links to websites and urged recipients to exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of Jan. 6.
“I do not. I was not in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, played no part in the events of Jan. 6 and I condemn all criminal activity that occurred,” he said.
“Instead, it appears that I was retaliated against because I forwarded information to my superiors and others that question the official narrative of the events of Jan. 6,” he told the lawmakers. “As a result, I was accused of promoting conspiratorial views and unreliable information. Because I did this, the FBI questioned my allegiance to the United States.”
Mr. Allen indicated he believed that the bureau retaliated against him because he shared an email that questioned the House testimony of FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who was questioned about FBI confidential human sources and FBI employees at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The suggestion that the FBI’s confidential human sources or FBI employees in some way instigated or orchestrated Jan. 6th, that’s categorically false,” Mr. Wray said during a House hearing last November in response to Rep. Clay Higgins, Louisiana Republican.
“Specifically, the Security Division found Mr. Allen espoused alternative theories to coworkers verbally and in emails and instant messages sent on the FBI systems, in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity,” the FBI said.
One of the emails that the FBI took issue with contained a link to a website that stated, among other things, “By now it’s clear that federal law enforcement had some degree of infiltration among the crowds gathered at the Capitol on January 6,’ to which Mr. Allen commented, “brings up serious concerns about USG participation.’”
The FBI said he was told multiple times by a supervisor to “stop circulating these materials,” but Mr. Allen “continued.”
Mr. Allen’s testimony and email were corroborated by Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill, who worked at the Boston field office and testified previously behind closed doors to the committee.
Mr. Hill’s video testimony was played before the committee.
In the video, Mr. Hill testified that the Washington field office pressured the Boston field office to open investigations into 140 people who traveled to Washington to attend the Trump Jan. 6 rally against what protesters saw as a rigged election.
When the Boston office asked the Washington office for more evidence, including video from the Capitol, to predicate the investigations properly, the D.C. office provided pictures of two individuals inside the Capitol.
However, the Washington office refused to provide video evidence from the Capitol out of fear it would disclose undercover officers or confidential human sources inside the Capitol, Mr. Hill said during his closed door testimony.
Mr. Allen has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to recover his livelihood and restore his reputation. His attorney, Tristan Leavitt, filed a whistleblower complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
That complaint, according to Mr. Allen, set forth retaliation through misuse of the security clearance process, as well as reprisal against him for making a protected disclosure.
“I have never had the opportunity to defend myself. I only had one interview with the FBI, which occurred a year ago, after apparent prompting from Congress,” he said. “It has been more than a year since the FBI took my paycheck from me and we’re getting financially crushed. My family and I have been surviving on early withdrawals from our retirement accounts.”
Mr. O’Boyle told the committee he was transferred across the country only to be suspended by the FBI on his first day.
“They allowed us to sell my family’s home. They ordered me to report to the new unit when our youngest daughter was 2 weeks old. Then on my first day on the new assignment, they suspended me, rendering my family homeless,” he said.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said the panel has talked to over two dozen FBI whistleblowers.
“If you’re a parent, attending a school board meeting, you’re pro-life or praying at a clinic, or you’re a Catholic, simply go into Mass, you are a target of the government, target of the FBI. And maybe even worse than all that,” Mr. Jordan said. “If you’re one of the thousands of good employees, brave whistleblowers who’s willing to come forward, you’re one of these folks willing to come forward and talk about what’s going on out there, you get attacked, they will try to crush you.”
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, excoriated each of the whistleblowers, who had served in the military, and listed names of recent federal employees who had leaked classified or top secret information.
“Just because someone served our country, in the military, and that they do work for a federal agency, does not exempt them immediately from being someone who could potentially commit espionage or lose security clearances,” she said. “Should we give everybody a pass just because they served our country? We respect their service, but if they break the law, then that means they have to face the consequences.”
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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