FBI whistleblower suspended
Miranda Devine of the NY Post reports:
Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and using an “overzealous” January 6 investigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.
Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.
He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 subjects accused of misdemeanor offenses…“I have an oath to uphold the Constitution,” he told supervisors when he asserted his conscientious objection to joining an Aug. 24 raid on a J6 subject in the Jacksonville, Fla., area. “I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”
Friend, who did not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said he told his immediate boss twice that he believed the raid, and the investigative process leading up to it, violated FBI policy and the subject’s right under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial and Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.
Here are some of Friend’s allegations about the FBI’s abuses:
–FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.
–The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.
–The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBI’s Daytona Beach resident agency “for investigation and arrest.”
–The Jacksonville area was “inundated” with “guardian” notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on people’s doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go inside the Capitol.
Whistleblower laws protect whistleblowers from retaliation, but apparently the laws protecting FBI workers are insufficient. I’m not sure whether this statute from 2016 is the one still controlling, but I think it is. About seven weeks ago, however, Senators Grassley and Durbin introduced this bill:
Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have introduced bipartisan legislation to further protect whistleblowers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from retaliation. The FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act would allow FBI employees to appeal retaliation claims to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) – a board already utilized by several other federal law enforcement agencies to ensure whistleblowers have the right to a fair, third-party hearing.
“With transparency comes accountability, and it’s clear both are sorely needed at the FBI. From my years of working with whistleblowers, I know the number one concern among those who decide to come forward is retaliation, which could destroy their careers. Our whistleblower protection enhancement bill takes a commonsense approach to fixing this problem, utilizing an effective system that’s already in place for other law enforcement agencies. I appreciate Chairman Durbin for joining me on this important effort,” Grassley said.
“Whistleblowers bravely step forward to report when agencies like the FBI are skirting accountability. But if we want to ensure that whistleblowers can come forward, we must shield them from retaliation. My legislation with Ranking Member Grassley, the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, will improve protections for those who report wrongdoing at the FBI and, in turn, increase transparency and accountability within our government,” Durbin said.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was able to get this provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House earlier this month.
It’s interesting to me that Democrats Dubin and Speier are onboard with this. Do they think that FBI whistleblowers might some day be on the left, reporting on abuses by the right? I think they probably do believe that could happen.
From that description of the proposed Enhancement Bill:
[The proposed bill] Maintains the FBI’s internal adjudication process for all initial claims but grants employees the ability to appeal determinations or adverse actions to the MSPB.
Prevents the FBI from using delay tactics to punish whistleblowers by introducing a kick-out provision. After 180 days, if the FBI has not made a final determination or corrective action order, employees can take their case directly to the MSPB.
Increases accountability at the FBI and guarantees that FBI whistleblowers are afforded the same protections that nearly every other federal law enforcement agency in the country enjoys.
Why was the carve-out established for the FBI in the first place, I wonder? It seems to have something to do with Congress’ intention to protect intelligence agencies in general. That’s the same sort of argument the DOJ is using in trying to stop the appointment of a Special Master in the Trump MAL search case.
Rational and well-informed persons who care about the future of the republic should be eternally grateful to Miranda Devine (categorized at Wikipedia under “Australian conspiracy theorists”) and to Julie Kelly (AmericanGreatness), neither of whom, of course, will ever be awarded any Pulitzer (such as was awarded to WaPo and the NYT for mendacious and malicious and mischievous mis-reporting on “Russia-gate”). It is certainly likely that the MSM will ignore the laudable efforts of Steve Friend, just as there has been little coverage of the young man run over in ND by a lunatic (Shannon Brandt) worried about “Republican extremism”.
Typo, first word of post. It’s Miranda, with an a.
Kate:
Thanks, fixed.
In the meantime …i can just think the documents are declassified and they are…
Guess who said that?
How far down this nonsense path do you want to go?
When it comes to abuses this is rather egregious. Anyone here calling for accountability?
No… It is all a witch hunt. Nothing there to see
So far no denial that the documents were in his possession and that they were classified at some point.
Dearie is pressing for proof on declassification and on alleged planting of docs… We’ll see what team Trump presents.
BM (the commenter formerly known as “Big Maq”):
Did you even read the post?
No one has to “guess who said that,” because I discussed it in the post, and offered a link to a video of the whole statement (also recounted by Turley in the piece of his I linked), as well as a discussion of the fact that no protocol has ever been established for a president declassifying something. In addition, I discuss what courts have previously ruled, and the fact that it does not rely on a statute. In addition, one of the many issues is whether any of the statutes involving classified documents even apply to former presidents having the documents they say they declassified in their possession, as well as the political nature of the prosecution (as clearly evidenced by the lack of prosecution of Hillary Clinton – who was not even a president – for the violations regarding her server and her destruction of evidence that was under subpoena).
Your snark and insults really don’t make much of an argument.
there was a declassification form, he posted on his own site, now the way the bureau has acted, per the precursor players as paul sperry has noted, doesn’t inspire confidence,
one of the judges on that panel, andrew brashler was unwilling to challenge dominions, along with lagoa, she was the runner up to barrett
mr friend, reminds of chad joy, he was the one that called out the unorthodox
arrangement(ahem) of william allen and his fbi handler, who covered up his criminal past, ala epstein, because of her unprofessional behavior, he was the one they used to target ted stevens and the three alaskan state legislators,
as of 2022, he left and she remained in the bureau
Steve is a friend indeed. An American hero.
When does a card carrying Republican ever revive the sacred Brief enumerating the injuries and usurpations against the King’s Officials preceding the text “ when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…”
One thing that I don’t quite understand (though this might be because I don’t have all the information) is that if the FBI takes scads of documents—hoovers them up from your home so to speak—and refuses to describe specifically, or itemize, which documents they took (while also REFUSING to allow a Trump official, OR LAWYER, to accompany them on their “search” (is THAT on the up and up??), then how is Trump supposed to tell them which SPECIFIC documents are the ones that have been unclassified.
Is this just another “heads I win, tails you lose” farce by the DOJ/FBI?
Once again, it doesn’t seem to make sense but I may not be fully understanding what occurred or what’s at stake here….
(Oh, and might one wonder whether Melania’s underwear was declassified? Curious minds, etc…)
It should be clear based on past events that the FBI considers itself above the law.
This has a clarifying effect regarding the rest of the FBI agents. We know more accurately who they are. We have an actual contrast.
I’m so old I remember when Democrats were screaming that whistleblowers had to be protected at all costs. The name Alexander Vindman, er, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, comes to mind.
So a dutiful citizen, one who’s been paying attention, is called for jury duty in a federal case. What is he to do?
Go to Yale and join the CIA if you want DEFCON 1 level whistleblower protection.
Follow Eric Ciaramella on no platform known to man on pain of death for more career planning tips.