WASHINGTON – Since last year, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has spoken of Dozens of FBI agents who will come to the House Republicans to complain about the epic betrayal by the leadership in favor of the awakening establishment.
Now Jordan is chairing a new subcommittee created specifically to air those grievances – but it’s unclear if it will live up to the hype.
In an effort to undercut Jordan, Democrats on the “Weaponization of Government” subcommittee released their own summary and partial transcript of the committee’s first interview with three former FBI agents, and the material is embarrassing.
Two of the three agents have embraced the discredited conspiracy theory that the FBI caused the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Two of the three recently received cash payments and other favors from Donald Trump loyalists that were used by the Trump administration. One of them won’t even explain what he did to get suspended by the FBI.
And according to Democrats — who released the material because they claim Republicans leaked it first — none of those considered whistleblowers fit the legal definition of a whistleblower.
“These people, who are spouting various conspiracy theories, have not provided any real evidence of wrongdoing at the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Reps. Jerry Nadler (DN.Y.) and Stacy Plaskett (DV). .I.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and the weapons subcommittee, wrote in 315-page report.
Jordan’s spokesman said that “It is beyond disappointing, but not surprising, that Democrats would release excerpts of cherry-picked testimony to attack courageous whistleblowers who risked their careers to speak out about abuses at the Justice Department and the FBI.”
One of the FBI agents who sat for a closed-door interview with the committee last month was Stephen Friend, who previously told Senate Republicans. According to Friend’s own version of events, he was suspended after her simply refused to work on any case related to the Capitol riots.
Friend thinks some of the people who stormed the Capitol are not guilty and will not get a fair trial in Washington. He also disputed how the FBI’s Washington field office handed over the January 6 case to the regional office and claimed the FBI improperly deployed tactical teams against the rioters.
But according to a partial transcript of the committee’s interview, Friend actually admitted last month that SWAT raids were given to potentially armed suspects.
“The people you’re concerned about [a SWAT raid last year]do you know of any factors that would suggest a SWAT team?” the committee asked.
“I’m a gun owner meeting that matrix, and those people,” said Friend.
The Democrat’s report also said that Friend’s complaint about case assignment had been investigated by the Justice Department’s inspector general and the Office of the General Counsel, and both had found nothing.
The documents highlighted the fact that Friend and George Hill, another FBI agent who spoke to the committee, suggested in public statements that a man named Ray Epps had assisted in the attack on the Capitol as an undercover FBI agent.
“Happy Anniversary Ray Epps, from our friends at The Deep State,” Hill wrote in a tweet on January 6, 2023, which has since been deleted. “Mission done!”
This theory is based on nearly all of the video footage that shows Epps talking about entering the Capitol and saying something to a man who then fights the police. It’s thin evidence for his extraordinary claim, but Epps, a roofing contractor and Trump supporter in Arizona, repeatedly told investigators last yearunder penalty of perjury, he was not acting as an FBI informant or at the direction of a law enforcement agency.
Democrats said the other suspended FBI agent, Garrett O’Boyle, would not say why he was suspended, other than to say the suspension notice cited “an unknown person … [he] has made an unprotected disclosure to the media. The Democratic report said O’Boyle shared more than 50 documents with the Republican Committee, however.
Since being suspended and sharing the story with Republicans, both O’Boyle and Friend told the committee that they received cash payments from Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official who is now a Republican fundraiser. Friends said Patel also hooked him up with a new job at the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit helmed by former Trump budget director Russell Vought.
The Democrat wrote that “there is a strong possibility that Kash Patel encouraged witnesses to continue to make inappropriate claims, and in fact used them to help revenge against the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Biden administration for himself and President Trump.”
In a series of public Twitter messages on Friday, Friends appeared to be interested in looking into the case.
“The best thing the FBI, House Democrats, DOJ Inspector General, DOJ Special Counsel, and the American media can do is investigate the veracity of my declaration,” he wrote.
HuffPost asked the friend if the DOJ’s inspector general and special counsel had not investigated the claims, but they did not respond.