WASHINGTON — Since last year, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has talked about the dozens of FBI agents who have come to House Republicans complaining of an epic betrayal by their revivalist establishment leaders.
Now, Jordan is leading a new subcommittee created specifically to voice those grievances, but it’s not clear they’ll live up to the hype.
In an effort to undermine Jordan, the Democratic subcommittee on government armaments has released the summary and partial transcripts of the committee’s first interviews with three former FBI agents, and the material is embarrassing.
Two of the three agents supported a discredited conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. Two of the three recently received cash payments and other aid from a Donald Trump loyalist who worked for the Trump administration. One of them didn’t even explain what he did to get suspended by the FBI.
And according to Democrats — who released the material because they said Republicans leaked it first — none of the alleged whistleblowers meet the legal definition of a whistleblower.
“These individuals, who have presented a wide variety of conspiracy theories, have presented no concrete evidence of any wrongdoing to the Department of Justice or the FBI,” said Reps. Jerry Nadler (DN.Y.) and Stacy Plaskett (DV) . .I.), leading the House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee on armaments, wrote in 315 page report.
Jordan’s rep said it was “Beyond disappointing, but sadly not surprising, that Democrats leaked testimony chosen to attack the brave whistleblowers who risked their careers to speak about abuses to the Justice Department and the FBI.”
One of the FBI agents who participated in a closed-door interview with the committee last month is Stephen Friend, who previously told the story to Senate Republicans. According to Friend’s version of events, he was suspended after this he simply refused to work on any case related to the Capitol uprising.
Friend believed that some of the men who stormed the Capitol were not guilty and would not receive a fair trial in Washington. He also objected to how the FBI’s Washington office assigned the January 6 cases to regional offices and alleged that the FBI improperly deployed tactical counterinsurgency teams.
But according to the partial transcript of his committee interview, Friend essentially admitted last month that SWAT raids were justified against the potentially armed suspects in question.
“People you expressed concern for [a SWAT raid last year], were you aware of any factors that would favor a SWAT team?” asked the committee.
“I think being a gun owner satisfies that matrix, and those individuals were,” Friend said.
The Democrat’s report also reveals that Friend’s complaint was investigated by the Justice Department’s inspector general and the Justice Department’s Office of General Counsel, and both found it to be without merit.
The document points out that Friend and George Hill, another FBI agent who spoke to the committee, suggested in public statements that a man named Ray Epps helped instigate the attack on the Capitol as an undercover FBI agent.
“Happy Birthday Ray Epps from your friends in The Deep State,” Hill wrote in a Jan. 6, 2023, tweet that has since been deleted. “Well done!”
The theory is based almost entirely on video footage of Epps talking about entering the Capitol and saying something to a man who then got into an argument with police. To begin with, this is minimal evidence for an extraordinary claim, but Epps, a roofing contractor and Trump supporter in Arizona, he repeatedly told investigators last yearunder penalty of perjury, that he did not act as an informant for the FBI or under the direction of any law enforcement agency.
Democrats said another suspended FBI agent, Garrett O’Boyle, did not tell them why he was suspended, other than to say his suspension notice stated that “an unidentified individual … made an allegation that [he] made unprotected disclosures to the media.” The Democratic report said O’Boyle still shared more than 50 documents with Republicans on the committee.
Since being suspended and sharing their stories with Republicans, both O’Boyle and Friend have told the committee they received cash payments from Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official who now operates as a Republican fundraiser . . Friend said Patel also put him in touch with a new job at the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit run by former Trump budget director Russell Vought.
The Democrats wrote that “there is a strong likelihood that Kash Patel is encouraging witnesses to continue pursuing his baseless claims and is, in fact, using them to continue his vendetta against the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Biden administration on behalf of himself and on himself. in the name. President Trump”.
In a series of public tweets on Friday, Friend appeared to welcome his case being considered.
“The best the FBI, House Democrats, DOJ Inspector General, DOJ Special Counsel and the US media can do is investigate the veracity of my statement,” he wrote.
HuffPost asked Friend if the Justice Department’s inspector general and special counsel had already investigated his claims, but he did not respond.
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