FBI special agent Steve Friend in a file image. (Courtesy of Steve Friend)
Posted on 03/18/2023 6:43:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
There’s a growing divide between the rank-and-file officers of the FBI and upper management, according to FBI agent-turned-whistleblower Steve Friend, and it’s those at the top who are pushing a political agenda.
“I spent close to nine years in the FBI, spent a good chunk of my time just keeping my head down and working the cases in front of me,” Friend noted in a March 14 interview with NTD News, The Epoch Times’ sister outlet.
“There are a lot of agents that sort of share that sentiment and just want to drive the mission forward. Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between the rank-and-file and the management class, and as you climb that ladder, it’s tending to become more and more political.”
The evidence, Friend said, could be seen in the bureau’s disparate treatment of pro-life activists—like Mark Houck, whose home was raided by the FBI over an altercation outside of a Planned Parenthood—and pro-abortion activists, like those who protested outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes and were never investigated.
“I think there’s an argument to be made that the FBI has now just become a weaponized apparatchik of the presidential administration,” he added, holding that public trust in the agency has diminished largely as a result of the perception of political bias.
FBI special agent Steve Friend in a file image. (Courtesy of Steve Friend)
Friend—now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America—previously worked as a special agent in the FBI’s Jacksonville, Florida, office, but was suspended from the agency after he came forward last September with concerns about how the bureau was handling child sexual abuse cases and allegations that cases were being inappropriately assigned.
Friend had also objected to the FBI’s use of SWAT teams to arrest individuals suspected of committing misdemeanors during the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
According to a March 6 letter (pdf) written by whistleblower organization Empower Oversight, Friend was informed in December by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that, “after careful consideration,” the OIG had decided against opening an investigation into his allegations.
However, on March 16, DOJ Assistant Inspector General Sean O’Neill responded that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz “still intends to schedule an interview with Mr. Friend regarding his disclosures.”
Prior to his suspension, Friend was involved in investigations relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach—an incident he said could only be fully understood through “radical transparency.”
“I’m hoping that this slow drip of surveillance footage is just eventually abandoned, and we just get the whole amount of it,” he said, alluding to the recent exposés aired by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
“There’s no reason why it should be leaked out slowly because that just gives cannon fodder to both sides to accuse the other of cherry-picking their information.”
As for his views on the events of that day, Friend said he thought the incident involved a “mixed bag” of people who did some “deplorable and abhorrent” things and should be held accountable and those who were just there to exercise their First Amendment rights.
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One last chance, agents, you know you’re lying and covering for the Democrats and BLM types. Working against the country that gave you the freedom to have the life and career you wanted. Undermining America for Chinese interests. Using secret information from citizens for blackmail.
Stop doing the evil now and ask God for forgiveness.
I wonder what his comments are on allegations that the Deep State not only knew it was going to happen, but even had agents on the front lines breaking barricades and entering the Capitol, because they needed an emergency to stop any discussion of election irregularities or certification questions.
The bastards are waiting for the protest on Trump Tuesday. Like good Nazis, they’ll be dragging in Americans and locking them up. They’ve got a lot of empty prisons they have to restock.
I think this misses the point.
When Trump was president, the FBI was not a tool to be used by "The Presidential Administration". It's a Democrat tool only. In the White House or out of the White House, the Democrats have full control of the FBI as their own little Stasi.
No, Steve, I no longer believe that there is.
Ironic. BLM and antifa can burn down buildings and murder people and they are heros. Patriotic Americans protest a stolen election and they are thrown into a federal gulag for life. Dems picking winners and losers again. I remember obama saying something like that.
Signs (with big arrows) are needed to identify Feds and Provocateurs for the cameras!
Obonzo’s father was a rotten commie. Obonzo is a POS Nazi.
There's hardly any room in the networks' schedules to report the thousands and thousands of FBI agents who are resigning in protest.
By next week the FBI building and all the branch offices will be empty.
Corrupt DOJ / FBI - bump for later....
Of a Democratic Administration only.
Nailed it. More concerned with their pension than their oaths of office.
The corrupt agents make the other 5% look bad.
Ping
Confirmation.
Unfortunately, there’s a big disconnect between the rank-and-file and the management class.
It’s called infiltration comrade your with them or investigated.
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