Free Republic

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who was forced out for refusing to sign off on a warrant into a right-wing “domestic extremist group” has won a fight to unseal documents related to that case. Zach Schoffstall, a former supervisory agent in the FBI’s Salt Lake City division, was forced out of the FBI during the Biden administration for not going after the Patriot Front organization, the Daily Caller previously reported. Empower Oversight, a group that represents whistleblowers, filed a motion to request the government unseal the warrant. After 90 days, the government finally acquiesced and released the document,...

FBI agents lost their security clearances and jobs after blowing the whistle on the Biden-era and Chris Wray-led bureau. Now their lawyers are asking the Trump FBI, led by Kash Patel, to address their complaints.. FBI agents who blew the whistle on “wrongdoing” within the bureau — including one agent saying he wants to share further information about working under disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok — are calling upon the bureau, now led by Kash Patel, to review and resolve their claims of retaliation by Biden's FBI. Empower Oversight sent an early March letter to FBI general counsel Samuel Ramer,...

But former colleagues of the terminated “G-men” say this narrative is backward. FBI officials, past and present, have marshaled significant evidence via whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that several terminated leaders routinely used their offices for partisan purposes.

It’s going to be awkward at FBI headquarters next month when President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the bureau likely takes over. *** Patel has promised to “clean house” at the Hoover Building, and hold all those who “abused their power” during the Russiagate “witch hunt” accountable. He might start with the officials and agents who secretly vacuumed up his phone records and emails starting in late 2017, when he led a House Intelligence Committee investigation into the FBI’s reliance on Hillary Clinton’s false opposition research to surveil a Trump campaign official as a supposed “Russian agent.” According to a...

The FBI reached a settlement with whistleblower Marcus Allen after he was suspended without pay and had his security clearance pulled after he made protected disclosures regarding the testimony of Director Christopher Wray concerning the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Nonprofit watchdog Empower Oversight announced the settlement Tuesday after it filed an appeal on behalf of Allen in October 2023. The settlement includes 27 months of back pay and benefits that the FBI withheld from Allen since he was suspended in February 2022. Separately, the FBI also restored his security clearance.House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the FBI's...

A whistleblower organization has initiated a court action to force the Department of Justice to disclose why it spied on congressional staff, setting up a landmark legal battle on an issue that has rankled both Republicans and Democrats.Last fall, several current and former congressional oversight staff were belatedly informed that the Justice Department seized phone and email records in 2017 in an internal investigation, raising concerns about separation of powers between two branches of government.Jason Foster, who is now the founder and chair of Empower Oversight, the group which sued in court this week to unseal the court documents in...

Armed Services panel secretly fought court battle this summer to quash subpoena seeking records of contacts with ex-FBI official Daniel Jones and liberal-funded The Democracy Integrity Project nonprofit. ================================================================================= The efforts to disseminate a now-discredited theory that the Trump campaign had secret computer communications with the Kremlin extended beyond the FBI, CIA, and State Department to the U.S. Senate. Under the late Sen. John McCain, the Armed Services Committee engaged a former FBI official and his progressive-funded nonprofit to produce a report on the matter, according to court records obtained by Just the News. The Senate committee, now under Democrats'...