A 12-year FBI veteran was suspended from his duties on Monday, September 19, following complaints to his supervisors about the treatment of alleged participants in the events of January 6 accused by the federal government of committing low-level misdemeanor offenses.
Steve Friend, the agent in question, refused to participate in an August 24 raid on a suspected January 6 participant, declaring conscientious objection. Citing concerns under the Sixth and Eighth Amendments of the U.S. Bill of Rights, Friend allegedly told his superiors, “I have an oath to uphold the Constitution. I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”
Specifically, as it related to that upcoming raid, Friend alleges that he told his direct supervisor, Agent Greg Federico, that he believed “it was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses.”
Friend also filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Justice (DOJ) outlining what he believes are multiple violations of well-established FBI policy in the agency’s handling of investigations of alleged January 6 participants.
According to reporting, Friend alleges that the Washington, D.C., FBI Field Office has been “manipulating” January 6 case management, farming out the investigations to field offices across the country to give the appearance of a widespread national crisis.
As a result of this manipulation, Friend claims he was listed as the “lead agent” for cases he has never participated in and for which his direct supervisors had not signed off, which are both violations of FBI policy.
Reporting on Friend’s whistleblower report, Tucker Carlson said, “Now we have proof that many of these investigations are entirely fraudulent; they’re political.”
Friend also alleges that “domestic terrorism” cases are being opened on innocent Americans who were verifiably nowhere near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, based on anonymous tips to the FBI or even from the FBI perusing social media of regular citizens.
This particular allegation by Friend rings true for the experience of Lisa Gallagher, who awoke one morning to find FBI agents at her home, following what she believes was an anonymous tip to the FBI by someone who disagrees with her public support of former president Donald Trump.
In his report, Friend wrote, “The manipulative casefile practice creates false and misleading crime statistics. Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from [January 6], the FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.”
“So, they’re lying with numbers…this is fraud. And now it’s occupying a huge percentage of the FBI’s time at the very moment we’ve had 2 million people whose identity we can’t verify waltz into our country,” decried Carlson, reporting on this alleged manipulation.
Friend also claims that he was pulled off his work on child sexual exploitation cases and human trafficking to work on January 6 cases being sent out from the D.C. Field Office, writing that he was specifically told “child sexual abuse material investigations were no longer an FBI priority and should be referred to local law enforcement agencies.”
This is just the latest in a string of bad press for the FBI, which has caused an erosion in trust among lawmakers and the public. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted an article about Friend’s story, proclaiming, “The left continues to politicize the FBI!”
In a reported September 16 letter from FBI human resources, Friend was told he was losing his security clearance because he “espoused beliefs which demonstrate questionable judgment [and demonstrated] an unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations.”
In a statement to The Epoch Times on these allegations by Friend, the FBI said, “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s authority to investigate a case as domestic terrorism requires the existence of a potential criminal federal violation, the unlawful use or threat of force or violence, and ideological motivation of any type.
“We are committed to upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment activity,” the FBI contended.
The FBI spokesperson also denied allegations that resources are being pulled from child sexual abuse cases, noting that the agency is “charged with protecting the American People from a wide variety of threats,” adding, “Our commitment to one [crime] does not come at the expense of another.”
