FBI WHISTLEBLOWERS: WHAT THEIR DISCLOSURES INDICATE ABOUT THE POLITICIZATION OF THE FBI AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Republican Staff Report Committee on the Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives November 4, 2022
Executive Summary
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the stewardship of Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, is broken. The problem lies not with the majority of front-line agents who serve our country, but with the FBI’s politicized bureaucracy. The problem lies, for example, with the FBI hierarchy that spied on President Trump’s campaign and ridiculed conservative Americans. The problem lies with FBI bureaucrats who altered and mischaracterized evidence to federal courts, circumvented safeguards, and exploited weaknesses in policies governing investigations and informants to target politically disfavored subjects and to protect favored ones. The problem lies with the FBI structure that centralizes high-profile cases in D.C., in the hands of politicized actors with politicized incentives. Quite simply, the problem—the rot within the FBI—festers in and proceeds from Washington. Over the last year, a multitude of whistleblowers have approached Judiciary Committee Republicans with allegations of political bias by the FBI’s senior leadership and misuses of the agency’s federal law-enforcement powers. These whistleblowers have risked their careers out of fidelity to principle and a commitment to restoring public trust in the FBI. This report begins to tell their stories. Even at this early stage, one startling conclusion is clear: the FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, have become political institutions. This report details the problems, as recounted in whistleblower disclosures and other forms, that undermine the FBI’s fundamental law-enforcement mission. Whistleblowers describe the FBI’s Washington hierarchy as
“rotted at its core,”
maintaining a
“systemic culture of unaccountability,”
and full of
“rampant corruption, manipulation, and abuse.”
Whistleblowers describe how the FBI has abused its law-enforcement authorities for political purposes, and how actions by FBI leadership show a political bias against conservatives. For example:
•
The FBI is artificially inflating statistics about domestic violent extremism in thenation.
Whistleblowers have described how FBI leadership is pressuring line agents toreclassify cases as domestic violent extremism even if the matter does not meet thecriteria. They also explained how the FBI is misrepresenting the scale of domestic violentextremism nationwide by categorizing January 6th-related investigations as organic casesstemming from local field offices, instead of all related to one single incident. In bothways, the FBI is fueling the Biden Administration’s narrative that domestic violentextremism is the biggest threat to our nation.
•
The FBI is abusing its counterterrorism authorities to investigate parents who spokeat school board meetings.
Whistleblowers disclosed how, shortly after the NationalSchool Boards Association urged President Biden to use the Patriot Act against American parents, the FBI Counterterrorism Division set up a special “threat tag” to track school board-related cases. Whistleblowers provided evidence of how the FBI openedinvestigations into one mom for allegedly telling a local school board “we are coming for you” and a dad simply because he “rails against the government” and “has a lot of guns.”
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•
The FBI has abused its foreign intelligence authorities to spy on American citizens,including people associated with the campaign of President Trump in 2016.
Thesefacts have been documented in Inspector General reports and Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Court opinions, but there is little indication the FBI has changed—or iswilling to change—course.
•
The FBI is clearing the Bureau of employees who dissent from its woke, leftistagenda.
The FBI is actively seeking to “purge” FBI employees holding conservativeviews—or, in President Biden’s view, those who are a “threat to Americandemocracy”
— because they hold conservative views. The FBI has even taken retaliatoryactions against at least one whistleblower who has spoken out.
•
Whistleblowers have explained how the FBI’s “political meddling” “is dragging thecriminal side [of the Bureau] down” as resources are “pulled away” from real law-enforcement duties.
As a prime example, one whistleblower described how he was “toldthat child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies” so that he could work a Washington-directed politically charged case instead. Such a mis-prioritization is not only adereliction of duty, but it is a grave disservice to the victims of crimes that do notadvance the FBI’s political agenda.The examples outlined in this report concern FBI abuses and misconduct primarily, dueto the experiences of the whistleblowers and the conduct to which they are exposed. But because the FBI is a component of the Justice Department, it is virtually impossible to examine the FBI’s actions without also examining those of the Justice Department. For example, in creating a threat tag to track investigations into concerned parents, the FBI was executing on a directive from Attorney General Garland and the Justice Department. In addition, the recent examples of misconduct must properly be examined in the context of years of serious abuses from the FBI and Justice Department. As such, where necessary for context and explanation, this report includes a discussion of misconduct and abuses apparent in the Justice Department in addition to the FBI. The FBI has a troubling history of using its authorities to advance political goals. Under J.Edgar Hoover, the Bureau surveilled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., engaging in “an intensecampaign” to discredit the civil rights leader.
Following the September 11, 2001, terroristattacks, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller sought to change the FBI’s “culture” to produce a“centraliz[ed]” and “intelligence driven” organization.
With its new centralized structure, FBIleadership began running investigations out of headquarters rather than the originating fieldoffices—something that had been standard practice for nearly a century.
Mueller started thetrend of filling leadership positions with Washington bureaucrats “who lacked the institutional
1
Remarks, The White House, Remarks by President Biden on the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation (Sept. 1, 2022).
2
Sam Briger,
Documentary exposes how the FBI tried to destroy MLK with wiretaps, blackmail,
NPR (Jan. 18, 2021).
3
Thomas J. Baker,
How Robert Mueller shredded the FBI’s credibility,
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J. (Sept. 14, 2022).
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Id
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