FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, 37, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Justice inspector general that contains major allegations against the DC FBI field office. In his complaint, Friend accused the FBI of exaggerating the threat of domestic terrorism and setting aside other, more important investigations/assignments to instead target conservative Americans with “overzealous” January 6 investigations.

FBI Special Agent Steve Friend 

In the complaint to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Friend details many violations of FBI policy that involve the ongoing Jan 6 investigations.

One of Friend’s major concerns is that he was removed from active investigations into child sexual exploitation and human trafficking and put on Jan 6 cases instead. When questioning this shift of assignment, Friend’s superiors told him that “domestic terrorism was a higher priority” than the child pornography and trafficking cases.

Friend, who is the father of two young children, asserted that the investigations into the child exploitation cases were harmed as a result of him being reassigned.

On Monday, the 12-year veteran of the FBI and SWAT team member was suspended and forced to leave his FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Florida after he voiced serious complaints to his supervisors about the FBI’s violation of conservative Americans’ constitutional rights.

Just last month, Friend was also declared absent without leave after he refused to participate in SWAT raids on people involved in the Jan 6 Capitol protests who were accused merely of misdemeanor offenses. Friend declined to take part in these raids because he believed they were in violation of FBI policy.

After refusing to participate in the raid on a Jan 6 subject, Friend told his supervisors, “I have an oath to uphold the Constitution. I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”

He approached his immediate boss, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Greg Federico, with his concerns, saying that he believed believed “it was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses and opined that the subject would likely face extended detainment and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.”

“I suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advice them about the existence of the arrest warrant,” Friend reported.

Frederico advised him against voicing further objections to the SWAT assignment, and Friend said he “threatened reprisal indirectly by asking how long I saw myself continuing to work for the FBI.”

Four days after speaking with Frederico, Friend was called to Jacksonville, Florida to meet his higher-up bosses, Assistant Special Agents in Charge Coult Markovsky and Sean Ryan.

Friend again expressed that he thought the investigation into the Jan 6 subject violated the subject’s right under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial, as well as their right under the Eighth Amendment to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment.

Markovsky asked Friend if J6 rioters who “killed police officers” should be prosecuted. When Friend argued that “there were no police officers killed on January 6, 2021,” Markovsky told him he was being a “bad teammate.”

Friend was then threatened with insubordination and the loss of his future career. He was also stripped of his top-secret security clearance.

Friend also voiced his complaint about “manipulative casefile practice [which] creates false and misleading crime statistics, constituting false official federal statements.”

“Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from an isolated incident at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States,” Friend reported.

“At no point was I advised or counseled on where to take my disclosure beyond the reprising officials above; the threatened reprisal constituted a de facto gag on my whistleblowing.”

In a story by the New York Post, some of Friend’s allegations against the FBI are listed:

  • The Washington, DC, field office is “manipulating” FBI case management protocol and farming out J6 cases to field offices across the country to create the false impression that right-wing domestic violence is a widespread national problem that goes far beyond the “black swan” event of Jan. 6, 2021.
  • As a result, he was listed as lead agent in cases he had not investigated and which his supervisor had not signed off on, in violation of FBI policy.
  •  FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called “guardians,” after the FBI software that collates them.
  •  The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.
  •  The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBI’s Daytona Beach resident agency “for investigation and arrest.”
  •  The Jacksonville area was “inundated” with “guardian” notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on people’s doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go ­inside the Capitol.

Friend revealed that many other FBI agents nationwide share his concerns that they are being used as pawns in the political agenda of the bosses in Washington, DC. He suggested that many agents are keeping quiet about the internal issues because they are close to their 20-year retirement with full pension – many having joined in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – and don’t want to throw away their years of hard work.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson spoke to the author of the New York Post article about Special Agent Friend, Miranda Devine, who has spoken directly with him.

Devine labeled Friend an “American hero” who stood up for the wrongfully targeted conservative Americans.

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