‘Bad Guys Have Begun Running Parts of the Government’: FBI Whistleblowers Testify Before House Weaponization Committee

Three FBI whistleblowers and a former Biden official testified before the House Weaponization Committee Thursday morning to discuss multiple abuses of power by Bureau leadership, including whistleblower retaliation, the purging of conservatives, security clearance suspensions, and the inflation of domestic terrorism statistics.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and head of the select committee, scheduled the hearing “to examine abuses seen at the Bureau and how the FBI has retaliated against whistleblowers.”

Tristan Leavitt, who served in the Biden administration as a member of the United States Merit Systems Protection Board from March 4, 2022 to February 28, 2023, blasted Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government over their “shameful” attempts to smear the FBI whistleblowers.

“Instead of welcoming or at least protecting such disclosures, FBI employees who have come forward to Congress have been shamefully treated by the Ranking Members and Minority staff of this Committee,” said Tristan Leavitt, President of Empower Empower Oversight, in his opening statement. Leavitt served in the Biden administration as a member of the United States Merit Systems Protection Board from March 4, 2022 to February 28, 2023.

Leavitt testified that  Democrat lawmakers on the committee have made inaccurate assertions in their attempts to smear and discredit the whistleblowers.

“It’s one thing to hear allegations and not find them particularly persuasive or relevant to a particular inquiry. If an office even wants to ignore allegations, as the Minority staff appeared to have done for several months up until transcribed interviews with these witnesses were scheduled with the Committee, that’s their prerogative,” Leavitt said.

But it’s another thing altogether to actively go out and smear the individuals disclosing those allegations. That’s exactly what the Ranking Members and Minority staff of this Committee did when they released a March 2 report entitled “GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the State of the Republican Investigations.

In the foreword of the report, Ranking Member Nadler and Ranking Member Plaskett wrote: ‘[T]he three individuals we have met are not, in fact, whistleblowers. These individuals . . . did not present actual evidence of any wrongdoing at the Department of Justice or the [FBI].’

Similarly, in the body of the report, they alleged: ‘[N]one of the witnesses have provided evidence related to a violation of law, policy, or abuse of authority. None are ‘whistleblowers’ in any sense recognized by federal law or any federal agency.’

“These assertions were conceptually inaccurate, both on the law and on the facts,” Leavitt declared. “The law doesn’t define the term whistleblower.”

Tristan Leavitt nails it on the definition of a whistleblower. pic.twitter.com/KVPO4Z5LPR

— SweetPeaBelle (@SweetPeaBell326) May 18, 2023

Two suspended FBI special agents, Garret O’Boyle, Steve Friend, and suspended FBI State Operations Specialist Marcus Allen also testified before the committee, Thursday.

In his opening statement, Friend testified that in August of 22,  he made protected whistleblower disclosures to his Assistant Special Agents in Charge, and Special Agent in Charge regarding his concerns about the January 6th investigations assigned to his office.

Friend served in the FBI as a special agent for eight and a half years, and five more years on an FBI SWAT Team. As a special agent, Friend said he investigated approximately 200 violent crimes, such as aggravated assaults, murder, child abuse, rape, robbery, child molestation, child pornography, and human trafficking. He also spent five years as a local law enforcement officer in Georgia.

“I believed our departures from case management rules established in the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide could have undermined potentially righteous prosecutions and may have been part of an effort to inflate the FBI’s statistics on domestic extremism,” said Friend. “I also voiced concerns that the FBI’s use of SWAT and large-scale arrest operations to apprehend suspects who were accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors, represented by counsel, and who pledged to cooperate with the federal authorities in the event of criminal charges created an unnecessary risk to FBI personnel and public safety.”

The former G-man testified that at each level of his chain of command, “leadership cautioned that despite my exemplary work performance, whistleblowing placed my otherwise bright future with the FBI at risk.”

The whistleblower pointed out that he had to take an oath to protect the US Constitution and was required to attend trainings at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and MLK Memorial learn about the dangers of federal law enforcement overreach.

“Nevertheless, the FBI weaponized the security clearance processes to facilitate my removal from active duty within one month of my disclosures,” he testified, noting that his suspension was indefinite and unpaid.

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