Three FBI Agents Will Testify About The Bureau's Abuse Of Power And Its Retaliation Against Whistleblowers

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, has managed to secure the in-person testimony of three FBI whistleblowers who will speak about the agency's leadership "abuses of power" slated for Thursday, according to the Daily Mail. 

The three will reportedly detail how the agency has inflated "domestic violent extremism" statistics to fit political narratives against conservatives as well as the prioritization of the January 6th prosecution cases over child sex crime cases. The three agents say that there has been retaliation against them by the FBI for whistleblowing. 

The three FBI-related congressional witnesses are suspended agents Garret O'Boyle and Steve Friend as well as former FBI State Operations Specialist Marcus Allen. Friend in his affidavit wrote about the FBI's domestic violent extremism database, writing, "The manipulative casefile practice creates false and misleading crime statistics, constituting false official federal statements...Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from an isolated incident at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States."

 
The Weaponization Subcomittee confirmed that it would be holding a hearing on this topic by tweeting, "Three FBI whistleblowers will testify at a hearing on Thursday about abuses they’ve seen at the bureau and how the FBI has retaliated against them for speaking out."
 

#NEWS: Three FBI whistleblowers will testify at a hearing on Thursday about abuses they’ve seen at the bureau and how the FBI has retaliated against them for speaking out. https://t.co/19CpGZafmK

— Weaponization Committee (@Weaponization) May 15, 2023

The Daily Mail noted that "Friend had his security clearance revoked last September after he vocalized concerns to his superiors, which he described in an affidavit as being a clear retaliatory move by the agency against him. O'Boyle's clearance has also been stripped."

Jim Jordan also annouced on Twitter that he had "reached out to the Justice Department to have Special Counsel John Durham testify next week." 
 

We’ve reached out to the Justice Department to have Special Counsel John Durham testify next week.

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) May 15, 2023

Mr. Durham is (very slowly) investigating the illegalities and the improperness of the FBI probe into Trump over the accusation of Russian collusion in 2016. 

Speaking of the politicization of the FBI, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO) was recorded by the Daily Mail as saying, "It's clear to me that the Justice Department and the FBI are suffering from a political infection that, if it's not defeated, will cause the American people no longer to trust these storied institutions." Grassley along with Ron Johnson (R-WI) wrote to the FBI that Friend's security clearance ought to be reinstated and that the FBI was in violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act. Democrats for their part called these hearings and the committee in general as showcasing "conspiracy theories."