FBI Suspends Whistleblower Who Criticized Bureau’s Handling Of January 6 Investigations: Report
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The FBI has suspended a whistleblower who pushed back against the bureau’s handling of investigations related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to House Republicans.
“The FBI SUSPENDED a whistleblower for refusing to carry out the Bureau’s politicized investigations,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said in a Twitter post Tuesday.
The post contained screenshots of a letter Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the top Republican on the committee, sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray the day before. The letter outlined allegations from an FBI whistleblower that the bureau has altered some of its processes to make domestic violent extremism (DVE) cases appear more prevalent throughout the U.S. than they are.
“The FBI’s case categorization creates the illusion that threats from DVE are present in jurisdictions across the nation, when in reality they all stem from the same related investigation concerning the actions at the Capitol on January 6,” the letter says. “Such an artificial case categorization scheme allows FBI leadership to misleadingly point to ‘significant’ increases in DVE threats nationwide.”
A spokesman for Jordan’s office told The Daily Wire that the FBI whistleblower whose allegations were detailed in the letter informed Jordan’s office on Monday that the FBI had suspended him.
The whistleblower said that the FBI’s Washington Field Office has directed FBI field offices across the United States to open up DVE investigations into “potential subjects” related to the January 6 riot. However, while another field office officially opens the case, the Washington Field Office maintains control of the investigation, performing and approving “all of the investigative work and paperwork for the casefile,” the whistleblower said, according to Jordan’s letter.
“This scheme allows you to continue to support on paper your assertion that ‘[t]he FBI is a field-based law enforcement organization, and the vast majority of our investigations should continue to be worked by our field offices,’ while actually running the investigation from Washington,” Jordan’s letter said, quoting the whistleblower.
The whistleblower also alleged that the FBI was diverting resources from other investigative work to DVE cases. “The whistleblower recalled … being ‘told that child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies.’”
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