Ex-Homeland Security supervisor charged with lying to the FBI - AN DIEGO (CNS) - A former supervisor for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arraigned in federal court in San Diego Tuesday on charges of lying to the FBI about his alleged improper transmission of sensitive law enforcement information. The charges against Johnny Martin, 59, of Chula Vista stem from an investigation into a wide-ranging immigration-fraud scheme involving more than 150 victims and millions of dollars in losses, court documents state.
In March 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) began an audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) efforts to address homegrown violent extremists (HVE). In August 2017, during our audit, we became aware of a national security threat posed by activities of an HVE who is incarcerated at a federal facility outside DOJ’s authority. Upon receiving this information, we alerted FBI Counterterrorism Division (CTD) executive management of our concern and continued performing audit work to obtain further information about the significance of the threat and to assess the FBI’s handling of it. In response to our notification, FBI executive management took formal steps to coordinate with parallel leadership of the non-DOJ federal entity to mitigate this threat. This document provides an unclassified, publically releasable summary of the OIG’s recommendations to the FBI to further mitigate the threat to national security identified by the OIG during this audit. The FBI concurred with the OIG’s five recommendations, while noting some disagreements with the OIG’s analysis.
Based upon our interviews and review of available documents, in 2013 the FBI first became aware of activities of an HVE incarcerated in a federal facility outside DOJ’s authority that posed a threat to national security. At that time, FBI personnel coordinated with the responsible federal entity regarding methods to address the threat. This coordination continued intermittently over a 4-year period. However, we found that these efforts did not adequately mitigate the threat. As noted, the FBI’s recent actions taken following our notification to and involving CTD executive management, appear to have resulted in constructive steps to mitigate the threat. The OIG recommends that the FBI coordinate with the other federal entity to establish formalized procedures for this situation and to ensure that the threat posed by the HVE inmate is appropriately mitigated.
The threat posed by the activities of the particular HVE housed at a federal facility outside DOJ’s authority indicates that there is an increased risk that similar circumstances may exist with respect to other individuals, including HVE subjects, in the custody of other non-DOJ entities. Therefore, the OIG recommends that the FBI evaluate and determine appropriate actions, in coordination with appropriate other entities, to mitigate the potential national security threats that could arise from HVEs held in facilities outside the DOJ’s authority.
We provided the FBI, our congressional oversight committees, and the non-DOJ entity with more detailed information about the circumstances discovered during our audit in a classified memorandum so that it can assess and take immediate corrective actions regarding the national security concerns we identified. The OIG will continue our audit of the FBI’s efforts to address HVEs and we will incorporate in our final report any actions taken by the FBI to address the issues raised in this summary and in greater detail in our classified memorandum to the FBI.
