Stunning Evidence of FBI Weaponization Undermines Dem Narrative of Trump 'Retribution' in Firings
Whistleblowers allegedly had their security clearances pulled and careers destroyed. Those who defended them also allegedly faced retaliation. Top FBI leaders just fired led the targeting efforts.
A Weaponized FBI: It's Real, Say Whistleblowers, Boasting Scars to Prove It
Democrats have cast the Trump administration’s ouster of eight senior FBI leaders as a “purge” and act of “retribution” from a weaponized Justice Department, some likening it to President Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”
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.
These include allegations that at least two of the fired officials, Jeffrey Veltri and Dena Perkins, manipulated the security clearance review process to personally and professionally punish conservatives, COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, and Jan. 6 whistleblowers who reported suspected bureau malfeasance, and retaliated against those who came to the whistleblowers’ defense.
A third, Timothy Dunham, is also alleged to have improperly suspended security clearances.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley is expected to read numerous accounts of alleged misconduct perpetrated by these and other officials into the record Thursday morning as the committee considers the nomination of Kash Patel for FBI director.
I’ve got the gory details of the brazen misconduct in a new report for RealClearInvestigations.
Below, a taste in the story of Marcus Allen, a decorated Marine Corps veteran and award-winning FBI Staff Operations Specialist.
Veltri and Perkins allegedly would play an integral role in targeting him.
Allen’s duties included supporting the Charlotte, N.C. field office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in ongoing investigations and intelligence requests pertaining to Jan. 6. This included gathering and sharing relevant open-source information. In September 2021, Allen reported to his supervisors that various news outlets, including RealClearInvestigations, RealClearPolitics, and the New York Times, had reported that confidential FBI informants were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and a “significant counter-story” had formed.
Allen told his colleagues, “There is a good possibility the DC elements of our organization are not being forthright about the events of the day or the influence of government assets.” Minutes later, he forwarded his colleagues an email with a link to a video contrasting the Times’ report with then-FBI Director Wray’s testimony in March 2021 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting Wray may not have provided the whole truth about the FBI’s links to Jan. 6.
This would set off a chain of events that would leave Allen suspended and without pay for 27 months – forced, along with his wife, to take early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet.
Charlotte field office personnel forwarded Allen’s emails to the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, which passed them to Veltri – then-head of the Security Division section responsible for all personnel investigations.
Rather than first passing concerns to the division’s referral evaluation unit, as is customary, Veltri instigated an immediate investigation on the grounds of Allen’s potential lack of allegiance to the U.S. A successor would call this an “abortion of the process.”
Days later, Veltri received an email from the Charlotte field office, which expressed “added concerns” regarding Allen. Delivered on behalf of that office’s head, then-Special Agent in Charge Robert Wells, one of the eight FBI officials the Trump administration would terminate, it noted that Allen was one of two employees not to attest to his COVID-19 vaccination status, even though President Biden had made vaccination mandatory for all federal employees.
Veltri’s then-Assistant Section Chief Perkins used the email as justification to instruct the FBI’s Insider Threat Office to open an assessment into Allen.
That office would review Allen’s communications and conclude he harbored “hostile views towards the FBI and current administration.” To justify this characterization, it stated that Allen had sent “links from questionable sources,” including RealClearPolitics. It surmised Allen was trafficking in “extremist propaganda” and that he “may pose an insider threat to the FBI.”
Yet a subsequent probe of Allen’s communications by the FBI would find “no information validating” the basis for an investigation into Allen. Interviews with four Charlotte field office officials indicated they lacked evidence that he was disloyal, sympathized with Jan. 6 rioters, or was otherwise ill-equipped to handle his duties.
Despite the misgivings of the investigator and his supervisors on the case, IG Horowitz found that security division management – which included Veltri and Perkins – insisted that Allen’s security clearance be suspended pending investigation.
A January 2022 memorandum did just that, claiming on the basis of his emails and refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate that Allen “promoted unreliable information which indicates support for the events of January 6th” and “espoused conspiratorial views.”
According to the D.C.-based watchdog group that helped represent Allen, Empower Oversight, the agent was in limbo for 27 months while his case was investigated, adjudicated, and appealed.
When interviewed by the security division in connection with his case – some four months after his clearance and pay had been suspended – Allen, a self-described “faithful Catholic," indicated that “the Holy Spirit compelled him” to make the disclosure that would land him in hot water.
Veltri would allegedly deride Allen for that remark, suggesting, according to another division official represented by Empower Oversight, that he “was delusional for referring to his religious belief … for disclosing wrongdoing.”
Even though, as his counsel has detailed, all line-level employees who reviewed the Allen case believed he should retain his clearance, the bureau revoked his clearance under pressure from management, purportedly including Veltri.
Three individuals within the division responsible for processing Allen’s case would be reassigned in retaliation for disclosing misconduct in the division’s targeting of him.
It was not until May 2024 – after Horowitz’s office had initiated a reprisal investigation – that Allen reached a settlement with the Justice Department, agreeing to resign in exchange for full back pay and reinstatement of his security clearance.
Horowitz’s office would issue a May 2024 memorandum providing employees claiming reprisal additional means to defend themselves against indefinite unpaid suspension in light of Allen’s tribulations.
Read the whole thing here.