Democrats have solid the Trump administration’s ouster of eight senior FBI leaders as a “purge” and act of “retribution” from a weaponized Justice Division, some likening it to President Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”
However former colleagues of the terminated “G-men” say this narrative is backward. FBI officers, previous and current, have marshaled vital proof by way of whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that a number of terminated leaders routinely used their workplaces for partisan functions.
These embrace allegations that not less than two of the fired officers, Jeffrey Veltri and Dena Perkins, manipulated the safety clearance evaluate course of to personally and professionally punish conservatives, COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, and Jan. 6 whistleblowers who reported suspected bureau malfeasance, and retaliated in opposition to those that got here to the whistleblowers’ protection.
A 3rd, Timothy Dunham, can also be alleged to have improperly suspended safety clearances.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) learn quite a few accounts of alleged misconduct perpetrated by these and different officers into the document this morning because the committee thought-about the nomination of Kash Patel for FBI Director.
One subordinate of the three terminated people, a former supervisory particular agent within the Safety Division, “SecD,” from which Veltri and Perkins hailed, and whom Dunham oversaw, informed the committee:
I witnessed abuses dedicated in opposition to a number of workers by FBI senior leaders, notably by Jeff Veltri and Dena Perkins. I additionally noticed SecD retaliate in opposition to 5 of its personal workers for protesting these illegal practices. As a result of I spoke out in opposition to these abuses, Perkins and Timothy Dunham suspended my safety clearance, costing me my job and persevering with employment, totaling roughly $700,000 in misplaced wages and retirement advantages.
One other former FBI official, Marcus Allen, informed the committee that Veltri and Perkins “caused the suspension of my security clearance because I questioned whether the FBI Director was truthful to Congress and whether the FBI was obeying the law and Constitution in the January 6, 2021 investigations.” What adopted left “financial and emotional damage to me and my family will never be completely restored.”
A 3rd, Particular Agent Garret O’Boyle, who has been indefinitely suspended with out pay for effectively over two years in alleged retaliation for whistleblowing, informed the committee that Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, “and other leadership up to Christopher Wray, are responsible for what happened to me and my family.”
“Ensuring that they no longer work at the FBI is not retribution; it’s responsible leadership.”
Patel has been nominated to interchange Wray, who got here beneath hearth from Republicans who believed the bureau focused Trump supporters, mother and father, pro-life activists, and others. The Republican allegations knowledgeable President Trump’s first-day govt order, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and his Jan. 31 directive terminating eight high-level figures – together with these overseeing branches from counterterrorism to felony investigations and the heads of the bureau’s Miami and Washington subject workplaces. The memo additionally referred to as for a evaluate of the work of all FBI personnel pertaining to Jan. 6, numbering 5,000 in all, for misconduct.
Whereas no findings have been issued relating to that bigger probe, the Jan. 31 memo, drafted by Appearing Deputy Assistant Lawyer Basic Emil Bove, suggests a official rationale for terminating the FBI leaders. It notes that the bureau they usually themselves have been complicit in malfeasance pertaining to the Jan. 6 investigation, the weaponization of safety clearances, and resisting Justice Division directives. Consequently, Bove wrote, the DOJ didn’t belief them “to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
The Justice Division didn’t reply to RealClearInvestigations’ inquiries in reference to this story, and RCI was unable to achieve Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, or the 5 different terminated officers.
Democrats have assailed the firings. A letter signed by all 10 Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats said, “Our alarm has only grown in the past two weeks as this purge of experienced career prosecutors and agents has expanded … We can only assume these decisions are intended to prevent the Department from investigating national security and public corruption, while also serving as political retribution against the President’s perceived enemies and stoking fear among the dedicated and talented workforce in our nation’s premier law enforcement agency.”
Sen. Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Choose Committee on Intelligence, added: “These are people who have served our country, protected Americans and put criminals behind bars. Now they have been pushed out simply for doing their jobs.”
A central grievance of the whistleblowers is that, according to the Bove memo, FBI officers weaponized safety clearances. Particularly, they allege that the bureau’s Safety Division has baselessly suspended and/or revoked safety clearances in retaliation in opposition to those that have made protected disclosures. As sustaining a safety clearance is a necessary situation of employment, the suspension of 1’s clearance sometimes triggers an indefinite employment suspension with out pay. The suspended are additionally barred from in search of exterior employment or accepting items. The related probes can final months and even years, with the focused ready first for his or her circumstances to be totally investigated and adjudicated, after which typically ready nonetheless longer throughout an appeals course of.
The method might be so onerous that Justice Division Inspector Basic Michael Horowitz has famous that it may be leveraged to encourage disfavored workers to resign relatively than combat a prolonged and expensive battle.
Whereas the FBI has denied claims that the Safety Division has abused this energy lately, Horowitz detailed misconduct in testimony earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee final September. His group had seen proof indicating that the division had used the investigation and adjudication course of to punish whistleblowers.
One whose case Horowitz highlighted concerned Marcus Allen, a embellished Marine Corps veteran and award-winning FBI Workers Operations Specialist. Veltri and Perkins allegedly performed an integral position in focusing on him.
Allen’s duties included supporting the Charlotte, N.C. subject workplace’s Joint Terrorism Process Drive in ongoing investigations and intelligence requests pertaining to Jan. 6. This included gathering and sharing related open-source info. In September 2021, Allen reported to his supervisors that numerous information retailers, together with RealClearInvestigations, RealClearPolitics, and the New York Occasions, had reported that confidential FBI informants have been current on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and a “significant counter-story” had shaped.
Allen informed his colleagues, “There is a good possibility the DC elements of our organization are not being forthright about the events of the day or the influence of government assets.” Minutes later, he forwarded his colleagues an e mail with a hyperlink to a video contrasting the Occasions’ report with then-FBI Director Wray’s testimony in March 2021 earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting Wray could not have supplied the entire fact concerning the FBI’s hyperlinks to Jan. 6.
Suspended With out Pay 27 Months
This is able to set off a sequence of occasions that would go away Allen suspended and with out pay for 27 months – pressured, alongside along with his spouse, to take early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet.
Charlotte subject workplace personnel forwarded Allen’s emails to the FBI’s Workplace of Basic Counsel, which handed them to Veltri – then-head of the Safety Division part liable for all personnel investigations.
Slightly than first passing issues to the division’s referral analysis unit, as is customary, Veltri instigated an instantaneous investigation on the grounds of Allen’s potential lack of allegiance to the U.S. A successor would name this an “abortion of the process.”
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Days later, Veltri acquired an e mail from the Charlotte subject workplace, which expressed “added concerns” relating to Allen. Delivered on behalf of that workplace’s head, then-Particular Agent in Cost Robert Wells, one of many eight FBI officers the Trump administration would terminate, it famous that Allen was one in every of two workers to not attest to his COVID-19 vaccination standing, regardless that President Biden had made vaccination necessary for all federal workers.
Veltri’s then-Assistant Part Chief Perkins used the e-mail as justification to instruct the FBI’s Insider Risk Workplace to open an evaluation into Allen.
That workplace would evaluate Allen’s communications and conclude he harbored “hostile views towards the FBI and current administration.” To justify this characterization, it said that Allen had despatched “links from questionable sources,” together with RealClearPolitics. It surmised Allen was trafficking in “extremist propaganda” and that he “may pose an insider threat to the FBI.”
But a subsequent probe of Allen’s communications by the FBI would discover “no information validating” the premise for an investigation into Allen. Interviews with 4 Charlotte subject workplace officers indicated they lacked proof that he was disloyal, sympathized with Jan. 6 rioters, or was in any other case ill-equipped to deal with his duties.
Regardless of the misgivings of the investigator and his supervisors on the case, IG Horowitz discovered that safety division administration – which included Veltri and Perkins – insisted that Allen’s safety clearance be suspended pending investigation.
A January 2022 memorandum did simply that, claiming on the premise of his emails and refusal to adjust to the vaccine mandate that Allen “promoted unreliable information which indicates support for the events of January 6th” and “espoused conspiratorial views.”
In accordance to the D.C.-based watchdog group that helped symbolize Allen, Empower Oversight, the agent was in limbo for 27 months whereas his case was investigated, adjudicated, and appealed.
When interviewed by the safety division in connection along with his case – some 4 months after his clearance and pay had been suspended – Allen, a self-described “faithful Catholic,” indicated that “the Holy Spirit compelled him” to make the disclosure that might land him in sizzling water.
Veltri would allegedly deride Allen for that comment, suggesting, in response to one other division official represented by Empower Oversight, that he “was delusional for referring to his religious belief … for disclosing wrongdoing.”
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Although, as his counsel has detailed, all line-level workers who reviewed the Allen case believed he ought to retain his clearance, the bureau revoked his clearance beneath strain from administration, purportedly together with Veltri.
Three people throughout the division liable for processing Allen’s case could be reassigned in retaliation for disclosing misconduct within the division’s focusing on of him.
It was not till Might 2024 – after Horowitz’s workplace had initiated a reprisal investigation – that Allen reached a settlement with the Justice Division, agreeing to resign in alternate for full again pay and reinstatement of his safety clearance.
Horowitz’s workplace would subject a Might 2024 memorandum offering workers claiming reprisal further means to defend themselves in opposition to indefinite unpaid suspension in gentle of Allen’s tribulations.
The Case of Garret O’Boyle
In emotional testimony earlier than Congress final fall, Allen lamented that Particular Agent Garret O’Boyle was being subjected to a equally tortuous course of.
O’Boyle, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, alleges that he was focused by Perkins on baseless grounds – and has been suspended with out pay for practically two-and-a-half years.
Empower Oversight, which additionally serves as his counsel alongside a number of Safety Division whistleblowers, has detailed that in late 2021 and early 2022, O’Boyle started making a sequence of protected disclosures, first internally relating to FBI COVID-19 insurance policies that he believed have been unconstitutional and illegal, after which to Congress in regards to the politicization of the FBI.
Among the many congressional disclosures was his view that the bureau could have opened a politically motivated felony investigation into conservative muckraker Venture Veritas – about which the Justice Division had made false claims in courtroom.
In Might 2022, Venture Veritas revealed an interview with a masked FBI official making related claims.
After making use of for and being accepted to a brand new project with a begin date of September 2022, in August, O’Boyle offered his Kansas house and ready to maneuver to Virginia along with his three youngsters and his spouse, who was eight months pregnant. On the primary day, upon arriving at his new put up, O’Boyle was accused of leaking info to the press and had his safety clearance suspended. He and his household have been successfully rendered homeless, since he had not closed on his new house, and was left with out an earnings.
The Safety Division investigator on O’Boyle’s case had beforehand informed the then-Appearing Part Chief Perkins that there was no proof O’Boyle had leaked something to the media. Slightly, he had disclosed to his superiors that he believed O’Boyle could have made protected disclosures to Congress. But, as Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt informed the Home Judiciary Committee final fall, Perkins “responded that she had already briefed the FBI’s 7th floor that SA O’Boyle was a media leaker, and did not want to correct this misunderstanding.”
Proof means that Veltri and Perkins mentioned O’Boyle’s switch prematurely of his transfer, with whistleblowers inferring {that a} scheme was hatched to ensnare him.
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Shortly after the suspension, Veltri could be made head of the FBI’s Miami subject workplace, its fifth-largest. He would lead the investigation into the assassination try on President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. On the time, earlier experiences resurfaced that Veltri had demonstrated an anti-Trump bias, claims the FBI batted down.
The bureau revoked O’Boyle’s safety clearance in July 2024 after it grew to become conscious he had made protected disclosures to the DOJ inspector common and prematurely of coming hearings the place O’Boyle’s plight was more likely to be uncovered.
That month, O’Boyle’s authorized group, which additionally contains the American Heart for Regulation & Justice and Binnall Regulation Group, filed a “request for reconsideration” of the revocation. That entitles O’Boyle to evaluate the proof used to justify the revocation. O’Boyle’s group didn’t obtain such info till six months later, on Jan. 30, 2025. The receipt of that info triggers a 30-day interval with which to organize and submit his attraction.
“The crazy Kafkaesque system puts deadlines on the employee, but the FBI has an infinity whenever it wants – zero deadlines on its responses,” Jason Foster, Empower Oversight’s Founder and Chairman, informed RCI.
Perkins reportedly pushed an unnamed adjudicator who had advisable ending O’Boyle’s suspension out of his job .
In accordance with this adjudicator’s disclosure to Congress, “Perkins has moved several other employees who report to her for recommending decisions contrary to her interests [and] bases many of her decisions on favoritism.”
She “is considered corrupt and dishonest by FBI employees,” he stated.
These claims dovetail with these of a former supervisory particular agent on the Safety Division — the supervisor whose testimony Chairman Grassley learn into the document this morning. The agent, a Democrat, can also be represented by Empower Oversight.
In a July 2024 letter summarizing a number of the unnamed whistleblower’s claims, Leavitt stated his shopper had noticed that:
The outcomes of clearance investigations and adjudications have been typically pre-determined by the Division’s appearing Deputy Assistant Director [Veltri] and the appearing Part Chief [Perkins] liable for safety clearance investigations and adjudications, who typically overruled line workers and even dictated the wording of paperwork within the clearance course of.
In a associated letter to Horowitz and the Justice Division’s Workplace of Skilled Duty, the FBI official of practically 20 years disclosed, by Empower, that in his time as a Safety Division investigator beneath the management of Veltri and Perkins, it was frequent for investigators to ask “whether employees under investigation had vocalized support for former President Donald Trump or whether they had vocalized objection to the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Veltri and Perkins allegedly would “ask in staff meetings whether employees whose clearances were under investigation had received the vaccine.”
The supervisory particular agent asserted that the duo’s perspective “was that if an FBI employee fit a certain profile as a political conservative, they were viewed as security concerns and unworthy to work at the FBI.”
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In April 2022, investigators overseen by Veltri and Perkins issued a questionnaire reflecting this view in connecting with a probe of a 12-year FBI veteran whose safety clearance had been suspended one month prior.
Beneath penalty of potential disciplinary motion, investigators requested co-workers of the suspended worker whether or not he had vocalized “support for President Trump,” “objection to COVID-19 vaccination,” or “intent to attend 01/06/2021” – a reference to the Capitol riot.
The suspension got here some 15 months after the agent had self-reported, following the occasions of Jan. 6, that whereas on private go away, he had peacefully noticed actions amongst crowds close to the Capitol. After making disclosures to Congress relating to alleged politicization and safety clearance course of abuses in his case and others, he would have his safety clearance revoked. After interesting, with the method dragging on, the agent retired.
As for the longtime supervisory particular agent who had reported on Veltri and Perkins’ misconduct, he too had his safety clearance suspended. Foster informed RCI that the person who signed off on the agent’s suspension was Timothy Dunham.
One other unnamed Empower shopper, Foster informed RCI, claims that Dunham threatened to droop the person’s safety clearance as a method of retaliation and delayed reinstating the safety clearance of one other worker for over a 12 months.
Dunham served as the manager assistant director of the FBI’s human assets department – beneath which the Safety Division sits – from the summer time of 2023 till his termination, pursuant to the Bove memorandum.
These terminations could also be solely the start of efforts to treatment alleged malfeasance pertaining to whistleblowers. Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi, in establishing the Justice Division’s Weaponization Working Group shortly after her affirmation, indicated that one in every of its focuses will probably be inspecting “the retaliatory targeting, and in some instances criminal prosecution, of legitimate whistleblowers.”
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
