WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Workers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lost security clearance for objecting to the use of the bureau to persecute the Biden administration’s political enemies, according to an interim report released this week by the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Fox News reports that the House report says that was the fate suffered by former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend and staff operations specialist Marcus Allen.
“The leadership at the FBI and Justice Department have weaponized federal law enforcement against everyday Americans, seeking to silence those who dare to have a different viewpoint,” the report says. “Meanwhile, whistleblower testimony highlights that the FBI’s partisan leadership is currently engaging in a ‘purge’ of agents who hold conservative beliefs.”
As LifeSiteNews previously covered, Friend was suspended last September for protesting excessive treatment of suspects accused only of nonviolent misdemeanors at the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, as well as the bureau’s alleged manipulation of information to give the public an inflated perception of the “threat” posed by right-wing “domestic violent extremism.”
Allen lost his security clearance for circulating news articles and opinion videos related to the riot for “situational awareness,” according to the report. “Because these open-source articles questioned the FBI’s handling of the violence at the Capitol, the FBI suspended Allen for ‘conspiratorial views in regard to the events of January 6th.’”
The FBI claims it suspended Friend for “refus[ing] to participate in the execution of a court authorized, search and arrest of a criminal subject” and “participated in multiple, unapproved media interviews, including an interview with a Russian government news agency” and that Allen provoked security concerns for having “espoused alternative theories to coworkers verbally and in emails and instant messages sent on the FBI systems, in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity.”
“The disclosures from these FBI employees highlight egregious abuse, misallocation of law enforcement resources and misconduct with the leadership ranks of the FBI,” the committee report maintains, and the bureau engaged in “retaliatory conduct” against the pair for “making protected disclosures about what they believed in good faith to be wrong conduct.”
The use of federal law enforcement to retaliate against political opponents while treating more ideologically-aligned lawbreakers more softly has been one of the most alarming facets of the Biden presidency, from prosecuting pro-life activists while neglecting pro-abortion violence, to painting parents critical of left-wing classroom indoctrination as dangerous, to disproportionate prosecution of January 6 attendees for nonviolent offenses.