WASHINGTON – Multiple FBI whistleblowers, including those
in senior positions, are raising the alarm about tampering by senior FBI and
Justice Department officials in politically sensitive investigations ranging
from election and campaign finance probes across multiple election cycles to investigative
activity involving derogatory information on Hunter Biden’s financial and
foreign business activities. The legally protected disclosures to Senate
Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) suggest a political
double standard has influenced and infected decisions in matters of paramount
public interest.
Election & Campaign Finance Investigations
Whistleblowers allege that Washington Field Office
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault disregarded agency guidelines
requiring substantial factual predication to trigger investigations, while
declining to move forward with other investigations despite proper predication.
Thibault and Richard Pilger, director of the election crimes branch within the
FBI’s public integrity section, reportedly were instrumental in the opening of
an investigation into the Trump campaign and its associates based in
substantial part on information from left-aligned organization. Thibault allegedly
scrubbed and diluted details of the sources’ political bias from a memo seeking
the full investigation, which was ultimately approved by FBI Director Chris
Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Whistleblowers claim that Thibault, Pilger and
others didn’t always adhere to agency policies in their supervision of various
election-related matters, including campaign finance investigations across
multiple presidential election cycles. These claims comport with
testimony
from former acting Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue,
who previously told the committee that leadership within the public integrity
section and election crimes branch frequently asserted authority they did not
have, which frustrated and discouraged investigations.
“Simply put, if a politically
charged investigation is to be opened, the Justice Department and FBI have an
obligation to ensure that it’s done the right way. Based on the allegations,
that does not appear to have happened. Such improper conduct demands further
explanation from the Justice Department and FBI,” Grassley wrote in a
letter last week to Wray and Garland, which is being made public today.
Grassley
previously
raised concerns about left-wing social media
posts by Thibault, which likely violated federal laws department policies.
Following Grassley’s letter, the Inspector General referred Thibault to the
Office of Special Counsel for potential Hatch Act violations.
Hunter Biden Investigation
Whistleblowers
further allege that Thibault and other FBI officials sought to falsely portray
as disinformation evidence acquired from multiple sources that provided the FBI
derogatory information related to Hunter Biden’s financial and foreign business
activities, even though some of that information had already been or could be
verified. In August of 2020, FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten
opened an assessment, which was used by a team of agents at FBI headquarters to
improperly discredit and falsely claim that derogatory information about Biden’s
activities was disinformation, causing investigative activity and sourcing to
be shut down.
That
same month, FBI agents provided an unsolicited and unnecessary briefing to
Grassley and Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who were also
investigating Biden’s foreign business
deals. Details about that briefing were later
leaked to the news media in an
apparent effort to falsely cast the
senators’ investigation, which was based on U.S. government records and
testimony from Obama administration officials, as tainted with foreign
disinformation.
The FBI
headquarters team allegedly placed their assessment findings in a restricted
access subfolder, effectively flagging sources and derogatory evidence related
to Hunter Biden as disinformation while shielding the justification for such
findings from scrutiny. Thibault also reportedly ordered the closure of a
stream of information related to Hunter Biden and sought to improperly mark the
matter within FBI systems in a way that would prevent it from being re-opened
in the future. The FBI headquarters team allegedly claimed that reporting from
the stream was at risk of disinformation. However, whistleblowers claim that
all of the information obtained through that stream was already verified or
verifiable.
“The aforementioned allegations put a finer point on concerns that
I have raised for many years about political considerations infecting the decision-making
process at the Justice Department and FBI. If these allegations are true and
accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are – and have been – institutionally
corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress
and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the
law,” Grassley wrote in a letter
today to Wray and Garland.
Grassley
is seeking records related to Auten’s assessment, derogatory information received
by the FBI related to Hunter Biden and an accounting of all leads that were
either closed out or denied further review by or at the direction of Thibault.
Grassley is also seeking records related to the August 2020 briefing, including
302s, predicating materials and individuals involved.
Whistleblowers
Grassley
frequently hears from current and former government employees who come forward
to shine a light on fraud, waste, abuse and gross mismanagement in government
agencies or by government contractors. He protects the identities of these
sources and frequently promotes policies that shield whistleblowers from
retaliation. Individuals wishing to call attention to mismanagement or
misconduct within the Justice Department and its component agencies, such as
the FBI, about the aforementioned allegations or other misconduct should contact
Sen. Grassley’s investigations unit at (202) 224-3738 or email
wb_reports@judiciary-rep.senate.gov.
Director
Wray has personally committed to Senator Grassley that whistleblowers who have
come forward will not face retaliation.
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