An FBI whistleblower has reported that the Biden administration is forcing the bureau to violate the rights of Jan. 6 defendants, falsify statistics on domestic extremism and misuse SWAT teams to make misdemeanor arrests.
Special Agent Stephen M. Friend, who works for the FBI in Florida and serves as a SWAT team agent, told the main federal whistleblower office in Washington he had an “exemplary” work record since he joined the agency in 2014, but was recently suspended after he began raising concerns about the FBI’s and DOJ’s conduct in the Jan. 6 investigation.
“I believed the investigations were inconsistent with FBI procedure and resulted in the violation of citizens’ Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights,” Friend declared. “I added that many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI Executive Management.”
Justthenews.com reports: The FBI national press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Friday.
Friend said one of his many concerns is that the FBI is using SWAT teams to arrest Jan. 6 defendants facing misdemeanor charges, violating the bureau’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide and creating a potentially unsafe encounter.
“I responded that it was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses and opined that the subject would likely face extended detainment and biased jury pools in Washington D.C.,” Friend wrote in his whistleblower complaint. “I suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant.”
The agent said when he suggested alternatives for arresting suspects in minor Jan. 6 cases one of his bosses “told me that FBI executive management considered all potential alternatives and determined the SWAT takedown was the appropriate course of action.”
Friend said he believes the Jan. 6 investigation has involved “overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington D.C.” and that the heavy-handed tactics smacked of prior FBI mistakes like the Ruby Ridge tragedy in the 1990s.
Friend also confirmed allegations first raised by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, that the FBI field office in Washington D.C. was opening Jan. 6 cases in other field offices across the country, creating a false data trail suggesting a nationwide problem with domestic violent extremism when in fact the cases all stemmed from the Capitol riot in the nation’s capital.
Friend said he was assigned 36 Jan. 6 investigations for Florida alone and that one consequence of the data manipulation is that agents in field offices across the country are being listed as affiants for search and arrest warrants for subjects they actually had not investigated.
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