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 through whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that a number of terminated leaders routinely used their workplaces for partisan functions.
These embrace allegations that at the least two of the fired officers, Jeffrey Veltri and Dena Perkins, manipulated the safety clearance assessment 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 file this morning because the committee thought of 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, advised 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, advised 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 properly over two years in alleged retaliation for whistleblowing, advised 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, dad and mom, 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 prison investigations and the heads of the bureau’s Miami and Washington discipline workplaces. The memo additionally known as for a assessment 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 Legal professional Common Emil Bove, suggests a authentic rationale for terminating the FBI leaders. It notes that the bureau they usually themselves had 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 succeed in Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, or the 5 different terminated officers.
Democrats have assailed the firings. A letter signed by all 10 Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats acknowledged, “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 vital situation of employment, the suspension of 1’s clearance usually triggers an indefinite employment suspension with out pay. The suspended are additionally barred from looking for outdoors employment or accepting presents. The related probes can final months and even years, with the focused ready first for his or her instances to be totally investigated and adjudicated, after which generally ready nonetheless longer throughout an appeals course of.
The method could be so onerous that Justice Division Inspector Common Michael Horowitz has famous that it may be leveraged to encourage disfavored workers to resign moderately than struggle a prolonged and dear 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 staff 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 adorned 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. discipline workplace’s Joint Terrorism Job Drive in ongoing investigations and intelligence requests pertaining to Jan. 6. This included gathering and sharing related open-source data. In September 2021, Allen reported to his supervisors that varied information shops, together with RealClearInvestigations, RealClearPolitics, and the New York Occasions, had reported that confidential FBI informants had been current on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and a “significant counter-story” had fashioned.
Allen advised 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 offered the entire fact in regards to the FBI’s hyperlinks to Jan. 6.
Suspended With out Pay 27 Months
This might set off a sequence of occasions that would depart Allen suspended and with out pay for 27 months – pressured, alongside together with his spouse, to take early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet.
Charlotte discipline workplace personnel forwarded Allen’s emails to the FBI’s Workplace of Common Counsel, which handed them to Veltri – then-head of the Safety Division part accountable for all personnel investigations.
Slightly than first passing considerations to the division’s referral analysis unit, as is customary, Veltri instigated a right away 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 obtained an e-mail from the Charlotte discipline 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 all two workers to not attest to his COVID-19 vaccination standing, although President Biden had made vaccination obligatory for all federal workers.
Veltri’s then-Assistant Part Chief Perkins used the e-mail as justification to instruct the FBI’s Insider Menace Workplace to open an evaluation into Allen.
That workplace would assessment Allen’s communications and conclude he harbored “hostile views towards the FBI and current administration.” To justify this characterization, it acknowledged 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 idea for an investigation into Allen. Interviews with 4 Charlotte discipline 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 idea 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 together 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 may land him in scorching water.
Veltri would allegedly deride Allen for that comment, suggesting, in keeping with 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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Regardless that, 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 inside the division accountable 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 change for full again pay and reinstatement of his safety clearance.
Horowitz’s workplace would challenge 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 had 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 prison investigation into conservative muckraker Undertaking Veritas – about which the Justice Division had made false claims in courtroom.
In Might 2022, Undertaking Veritas revealed an interview with a masked FBI official making related claims.
After making use of for and being accepted to a brand new task with a begin date of September 2022, in August, O’Boyle bought his Kansas house and ready to maneuver to Virginia together 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 data to the press and had his safety clearance suspended. He and his household had 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 advised 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 advised 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 upfront 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 discipline 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 stories 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 upfront of coming hearings the place O’Boyle’s plight was prone to be uncovered.
That month, O’Boyle’s authorized staff, which additionally consists of the American Heart for Regulation & Justice and Binnall Regulation Group, filed a “request for reconsideration” of the revocation. That entitles O’Boyle to assessment the proof used to justify the revocation. O’Boyle’s staff didn’t obtain such data till six months later, on Jan. 30, 2025. The receipt of that data triggers a 30-day interval with which to organize and submit his enchantment.
“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, advised RCI.
Perkins reportedly pushed an unnamed adjudicator who had beneficial ending O’Boyle’s suspension out of his job .
In keeping 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 file this morning. The agent, a Democrat, can also be represented by Empower Oversight.
In a July 2024 letter summarizing among the unnamed whistleblower’s claims, Leavitt stated his shopper had noticed that:
The outcomes of clearance investigations and adjudications had been usually pre-determined by the Division’s performing Deputy Assistant Director [Veltri] and the performing Part Chief [Perkins] accountable for safety clearance investigations and adjudications, who usually overruled line employees 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 Accountability, the FBI official of practically 20 years disclosed, by way of Empower, that in his time as a Safety Division investigator beneath the management of Veltri and Perkins, it was widespread 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 depart, 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 advised RCI that the person who signed off on the agent’s suspension was Timothy Dunham.
One other unnamed Empower shopper, Foster advised RCI, claims that Dunham threatened to droop the person’s safety clearance as a way of retaliation and delayed reinstating the safety clearance of one other worker for over a yr.
Dunham served as the manager assistant director of the FBI’s human sources department – beneath which the Safety Division sits – from the summer season 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. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi, in establishing the Justice Division’s Weaponization Working Group shortly after her affirmation, indicated that one in all its focuses will likely be analyzing “the retaliatory targeting, and in some instances criminal prosecution, of legitimate whistleblowers.”
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
