FBI Whistleblower Testifies Bureau ‘May Have’ Had Confidential Human Sources in the Capitol on J6

A whistleblower from the FBI’s Boston field office testified that agents in Washington refused to share hours of video footage from the January 6 Capitol riot between the offices because there “may be” undercover officers or confidential human sources in the videos whose identities would need to be protected.

The revelation came in a prerecorded video testimony from whistleblower George Hill, which was played during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday. 

Representative Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) noted that a second whistleblower who was testifying in-person at the hearing, Marcus Allen, was allegedly retaliated against for sending an email linking to a website that said “federal law enforcement had some degree of infiltration among the crowds gathered at the Capitol.” Allen commented in the email that the information raised “serious concerns” about the U.S. government’s participation in the riot.

When asked whether the FBI had confidential human sources at the Capitol, Wray testified in November: “I have to be very careful about what I can say — about when we do and do not and where we have and have not used confidential human sources.”

“But to the extent that there’s a suggestion, for example, that the FBI’s confidential human sources or FBI employees in someway instigated or orchestrated January 6th, that’s categorically false,” Wray added at the time.

Wray later added that lawmakers “should not read anything into my decision not to share anything on confidential human sources” after he did not outright dismiss a question of whether the FBI had confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6.

Hill testified that the Boston field office said it would not pursue cases against January 6 rioters, but that to cover its bases, officials told the Washington field office they would consider taking on cases if the Washington officials could share video of where the rioters were when they were inside the Capitol.

The Washington field office allegedly said it could not share videos unless it was given the “exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol.” Hill said the office later clarified that it could not share 11,000 hours of video “because there may be UC’s, undercover officers, or CHS, confidential human sources, on those videos whose identity we need to protect.”

The hearing came after the subcommittee and the House Judiciary Committee released an interim report on Thursday that includes testimony about “abuses and misconduct in the FBI.”

Allen, an FBI staff operations specialist, had his security clearance suspended after he conducted Capitol riot case-related research using open-source news articles and videos and sent those results to his colleagues for what he called “situational awareness.”

“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 report says.

Allen testified during the hearing Thursday that “to shut down different viewpoints is the end of any analytical or investigative body.”

“It sends a chilling effect across the workforce and does not allow for intellectual freedom, which is vital to any investigative body seeking out the truth,” he said.

Representative Linda Sanchez (D., Calif.) had a confusing exchange with Allen in which she insisted upon discussing a post that was retweeted by an account under the name of Marcus Allen, despite Allen saying the account did not belong to him. She repeatedly asked if he agreed with the tweet, which said that Nancy Pelosi staged January 6. Allen reiterated that it was not his Twitter account and that he does not agree with the statement.

The hearing on Thursday was marked by fighting among the members of the committee after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) claimed chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) had withheld information from Democratic members about the whistleblowers.

Jordan said they are “not entitled” to the information when it comes to whistleblowers, to which Wasserman Schultz said the witnesses were not whistleblowers.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend testified Thursday that the bureau closed ranks and attacked him after he voiced concerns about the politicization of the bureau.

He said the FBI is “incentivized to work against the American people and is in dire need of drastic reform.”

Friend had his security clearance revoked and was suspended without pay after he voiced concerns about the bureau’s handling of Domestic Violent Extremism and cases related to the Capitol riot.

In protected disclosures, Friend said the FBI’s handling of the January 6 Capitol riot-related investigations “deviated from standard practice and created a false impression with respect to the threat of DVE nationwide.”

Friend said Thursday that his whistleblowing was “apolitical and in the spirit of upholding my oath.”

He testified that the FBI is is need of reform in several areas: “the integrated program management system incentivizes the use of inappropriate investigatory processes and tools to achieve arbitrary statistical accomplishments” and there is “mission creep within the national security branch [that] has refocused counter terrorism from legitimate foreign actors to political opponents within our borders.”

“The FBI weaponizes process crimes and reinterprets laws to initiate pre textual prosecutions and persecute its political enemies,” he said.

The interim report detailed testimony from Friend and other current and former FBI employees that reveals the bureau allegedly retaliated against employees who spoke out against “politicized rot” within the agency by suspending the employees or revoking their security clearances.

The report said the FBI is “broken” under the leadership of FBI director Christopher Wray and attorney general Merrick Garland. It adds that leadership at the FBI and DOJ have “weaponized federal law enforcement against everyday Americans, seeking to silence those who dare to have a different viewpoint.” 

“Meanwhile, whistleblower testimony highlights that the FBI’s partisan leadership is currently engaging in a ‘purge’ of agents who hold conservative beliefs,” the committees added.

In a letter to members of the Judiciary Committee ahead of the hearing, the FBI offered a different account of the suspensions of Friend and Allen. It said it had revoked the security clearances of three agents — Allen, Friend and Brett Gloss — for either taking part in the January 6 Capitol riot and later expressing views about the riot that placed into question their “allegiance to the United States.”

The FBI said it revoked Friend’s top security clearance on May 16 for several reasons, including his alleged refusal to participate in the execution of a “court authorized, search and arrest of a criminal subject” in August 2022, according to the letter obtained by Fox News.

“During his communications with his management about his refusal to participate, he espoused an alternative narrative about the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the FBI said. “On September 3, 2022, Mr. Friend entered FBI space and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems to an unauthorized removable flash drive. The FBI then required Mr. Friend to attend a Security Awareness Briefing (SAB) regarding his actions, but he refused to do so.”

The FBI also said Friend participated in “multiple, unapproved media interviews,” including with a Russian government news agency.

“Mr. Friend alleges he obtained approval from the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) to participate in these interviews, but OPA did not provide such authorization,” the letter adds. “Mr. Friend’s failure to follow FBI policies relating to social media contacts and his lack of candor poses a security concern.”

The FBI goes on to explain that Allen had his top secret security clearance revoked on May 3 after his security clearance was previously suspended in January 2022 based on security concerns. The bureau opened a security investigation into Allen in October 2021 because of a referral from the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office.

“Specifically, the Security Division found Mr. Allen 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 FBI said.

The bureau said he was told multiple times by a supervisor to “stop circulating these materials” but Allen “continued.” 

“As one example, on September 29, 2021, Mr. Allen sent an email using his FBI email account to multiple colleagues that contained links to websites and urged recipients to ‘exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of’ January 6,” the FBI said. “Another example included an email containing a link to a website that stated, among other things, ‘By now it’s clear that federal law enforcement had some degree of infiltration among the crowds gathered at the Capitol on January 6,’ to which Mr. Allen commented, ‘brings up serious concerns about USG participation.’”

The FBI said it “concluded that, in totality, Mr. Allen obstructed the FBI’s lawful investigation of a subject, and this behavior raised concerns about Mr. Allen’s judgment, trustworthiness, and reliability which indicates that Mr. Allen may not properly safeguard classified or sensitive information.”

The hearing on Thursday comes days after special prosecutor John Durham released a report on Monday that found the DOJ and FBI did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and began their Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump’s campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.” The findings in Durham’s report have only increased existing concerns about politicization within the DOJ and FBI.