On May 18, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing to explore allegations by FBI whistleblowers of mismanagement and other problems within the agency. It was a heated affair as Democrats attempted to delegitimize both the hearing and witnesses. During the Trump administration, their watchword was “oversight.” Now, it appears House Democrats think it shocking that the majority party would dare question the motivations and conduct of the leaders of federal government agencies.
This subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). A new 80-page report produced by the committee, entitled, “FBI Whistleblower Testimony Highlights Government Abuse, Misallocation of Resources, and Retaliation,” describes in detail the allegations made against the FBI.
The report, which contains transcripts of interviews with FBI whistleblowers, details an array of questionable practices at the Bureau. These include a cash incentive system that encouraged – and, to an extent, pressured – agents to “justify opening more cases and meet other investigative metrics as set by officials in Washington.” Additionally, according to testimony from whistleblowers, “the FBI pressured agents to reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism (DVE), and even manufactured DVE cases where they may not otherwise exist, while manipulating its case categorization system to feign a national problem.”
The agency is also alleged to have pursued many of the Jan. 6 (2021) Capitol Hill protesters without evidence that these people had committed any crimes. Retired Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill recounted how the Bureau’s Washington Field Office (WFO) pressured the Boston Field Office (BFO) into opening investigations against all 140 people who traveled to the nation’s capital as a group on two buses. On Jan. 6, two members of this group entered restricted areas in the Capitol building. The BFO opened cases on these two individuals for “potentially violating federal law” after being provided with photographs of them inside the building.
However, as Hill described, the WFO told the supervisory special agent (SAA) in Boston to open cases on everyone in this group. The SAA responded, “They were going to a political rally, which is First Amendment-protected activity. No, we’re not starting cases on these people.” After some back-and-forth, the Boston Field Office agreed to open the additional cases if the WFO provided it with video evidence that these protesters had entered the Capitol. WFO refused to provide the footage “because there may be UCs [undercover officers] or CHS’s [confidential human sources] on those videos whose identity we need to protect.” The FBI has refused to say publicly whether it placed undercover officers or informants among the Jan. 6 protesters.
More disturbing still is that, according to the whistleblowers, the FBI obtained the bank records – without subpoenas – of possible Jan. 6 protesters. To be clear, the FBI did not direct Bank of America to hand over this material, the bank compiled and provided it without compulsion or legal process. Hill described it thus:
“… The Bank of America, with no directive from the FBI, data-mined its customer base. And they data-mined a date range of 5 to 7 January [of 2021] any BOA customer who used a BOA product. And by ‘BOA product,’ I mean a debit card or a credit card. They compiled that list. And then, on top of that list, they put anyone who had purchased a firearm during any date. So it was a huge list …”
Legitimacy of Whistleblowers Questioned
During the hearing, Democrats tried to deny the witnesses had any legitimate claim to whistleblower protections. While Democrats held the majority in the House, committees withheld information from the Republican members on more than one occasion – even protecting the identity of whistleblowers. It was eye-opening, then, to hear Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) say to Rep. Jordan, “I’m not aware that you’re able to withhold information from the minority that we would need to use.” Wasserman Schultz was referring to the testimony of FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen, who had consented only to provide testimony to Republicans.
“When it comes to whistleblowers you are not [entitled],” Jordan responded, pointing out that it was “at the discretion of Mr. Allen.” The Florida Democrat then claimed that the witnesses “have been determined by the agency not to be whistleblowers.” Within federal government departments and agencies, multiple laws and programs exist to not only protect but encourage whistleblowers. If each agency got to decide whether one of its employees, who wished to reveal misconduct, fraud, abuse, or any other wrongdoing, could claim whistleblower status, there would likely be no whistleblowers. Page two of the Judiciary Committee report bears a notice to would-be whistleblowers:
“Every federal employee of the Department of Justice and FBI has an unfettered right to communicate with Congress, without the approval, consent, or awareness of the Department or the FBI. Federal law protects these disclosures. Whistleblowers are an invaluable source for Congress in identifying, understanding, and remedying waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. The Committee on the Judiciary is charged with conducting constitutional oversight of the Department of Justice and FBI.”
FBI Special Agent Gets Pariah Status
The litany of seemingly politically motivated or retaliatory actions by the FBI goes on. It includes targeting parents who protested the conduct of school boards and the rescinding of security clearances from employees who spoke up against the Bureau’s apparent weaponization. Special Agent Stephen Friend lost his security clearance and was suspended without pay for questioning the FBI’s handling of alleged Domestic Violent Extremism cases – mostly connected to Jan. 6.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
After expressing his concerns, Friend was called to a meeting with his supervisor and another assistant special agent in charge (ASAC). Friend described what happened next: “Following my meeting, I received an email from ASAC Markovski telling me that I was ordered to not come to work the following day and that I was going to be considered absent without leave.” When he was allowed to return, Friend stood his ground on his misgivings and was subsequently suspended indefinitely.
The hearing – and the report – make two things clear about today’s FBI. First, that a great many agents and other FBI officials are not at all happy about the way the Department of Justice and the Bureau are targeting American citizens in what more and more seems to be a specific pattern of politically partisan retaliation against anyone who questions Democratic Party policies or supports former President Donald Trump. As former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe recently put it, during an appearance on Fox News, “The American people, unfortunately, see that when it comes to Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, that the past six years we have an FBI and Department of Justice that have literally become the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party.”
The second discovery is that, if Friend and other whistleblowers are telling the truth, the FBI has developed a practice of treating any of its employees who dare speak out in a truly shameful manner. The federal government has taken great strides in assuring protection for whistleblowers. If those protections are purely theoretical, then transparency and accountability are a myth. Perhaps this would be a good time for Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide Congress with some straight and detailed answers, should they believe that their agencies are being unfairly maligned.
Unfettered by political influence, the FBI has done a great deal of good work. Its Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, is probably second to none in the world. At this point, it matters very little whether the agency has really become infected by political partisanship because there is such a strong perception that it has – and perception is all-important. The current leadership should now view the restoration of the FBI’s reputation as a top priority – and that would involve a blanket refusal to target any American for ideological reasons, regardless of the ideology. Whether the agency’s top-level officials choose to do so will reveal their chosen path: law enforcement and national security or the pursuit of political ideology.
