WASHINGTON — Two of the three self-proclaimed FBI whistleblowers who testified before a House subcommittee Thursday had their security clearances revoked because their conduct in the Jan. 6 cases called their allegiance to the United States into question, an official wrote. from the office in a letter to members of Congress this week.
A third FBI employee, a special agent who did not testify before the committee, had his security clearance revoked because he was on the restricted grounds of the US Capitol on January 6, but he lied about his conduct, he wrote. Acting FBI Deputy Director Christopher Dunham in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, obtained by NBC News.
The letter preceded Thursday’s hearing in the Jordan-led House Select Subcommittee on Federal Government Weapons, a new Republican panel that has focused on allegations that the government, and in particular the Justice Department, has unfairly attacked conservatives. The hearing featured testimony about the FBI, including that of Steve Friend, a former FBI special agent, and Marcus Allen, an FBI analyst working in the FBI’s Charlotte field office, who said in a lawsuit against the office that he had been suspended without pay. .
The New York Times first reported about the Wednesday night revocations.
Friend told his Florida office management that he would not work on the January 6 cases and «refused to participate in the execution of a court-authorized search and arrest,» the letter said. Friend «advocated an alternate narrative about events at the United States Capitol» before downloading documents from the FBI system onto an unauthorized flash drive, Dunham wrote.
Friend also «participated in multiple unapproved media interviews, including an interview with a Russian government news agency» and made a «surreptitious recording of a meeting with FBI management» that «may have violated Florida state law.» the letter said. (Friend, at the hearing, said he believed Florida’s two-party consent law had an exception for enforcement.)
Allen, Dunham wrote, «advertised alternative theories» about January 6 to his co-workers «verbally and in emails and instant messages sent on FBI systems, in apparent attempts to impede investigative activity.» Allen was warned about sending the materials, but «violated those instructions and continued to make such statements to his co-workers,» according to the letter, even as he sent an email to several colleagues that «urged recipients to ‘exercise extreme caution and discretion in following up on any investigation or lead related to the events of January 6.”
Allen also failed to «provide relevant information» to an FBI special agent about a Jan. 6 suspect who was later found to have physically assaulted US Capitol Police officers, according to the letter. The case against the Jan. 6 suspect was closed based on Allen’s representation that he «did not find any information that the subject engaged in criminal activity or find a nexus to terrorism,» the letter said.
Friend and Allen testified Thursday along with a third FBI employee, Garret O’Boyle, who is not named in Dunham’s letter but testified that he was also suspended.
Dunham’s letter also revealed that the FBI revoked the security clearance of another special agent, Brett Gloss, who was present on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 attack in a personal capacity. The FBI was still adjudicating the status of a fourth unidentified FBI employee, according to the letter.
Gloss did not respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, which describes itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group, provides legal representation to Friend and Allen. Leavitt said during the hearing that the FBI has a habit of «suspending security clearances to retaliate against whistleblowers» and holding families of FBI employees hostage by not allowing them to obtain new employment while on FBI suspension. .
According to Dunham, an FBI investigation found that Gloss «knowingly entered a restricted area around the United States Capitol» and «was present in an area near protesters clashing with Capitol Police.» The FBI also reviewed communications in which he «expressed his support for the protesters’ unauthorized entry into the Capitol building and his support for their criminal acts against the United States,» the letter said. Gloss also «provided false and/or misleading information during his security interview about what he observed on January 6 and whether he was in the restricted area that day» that was refuted by evidence, including his own personal photos, according to the letter.
«The FBI’s investigation showed that Mr. Gloss remained in the restricted area even after what he believed to be a deployment of tear gas and/or pepper spray, after witnessing protesters fighting with law enforcement trying to maintaining barriers and ultimately backing off due to protester activity. and then immediately afterwards witnessing protesters climbing onto scaffolding. These actions showed a gross lack of judgment,» the letter stated. «Mr. Gloss also failed to report his presence near the Capitol on January 6 to the Security Division, even after his supervisor warned him to do so.»
The letter noted that FBI employees «who attended the events on January 6, 2021, but did not engage in criminal conduct, such as trespassing, did not receive security clearance suspensions or revocations.»
As NBC News first reported in the fall, the misdemeanor defendant whom Friend refused to help arrest was a militia member accused of using pepper spray on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, who had dressed in military gear. and was present. in the lower west tunnel, where some of the most brutal violence of the day took place.
In his lawsuit against the FBI, Allen saying that he was informed last year that the bureau’s security bureau had received information that he had «adopted conspiratorial views both orally and in writing and promoted unreliable information indicating support for the events of January 6» that generated «enough concerns» about his «loyalty to the United States.»
Jordan said Thursday that «frankly, I’m not surprised that the FBI released this letter that night before we have a hearing,» but said he was «surprised it took them so long.» Jordan called the witnesses «brave Americans who are willing to come forward.»
Not long after the attack on the Capitol, a senior FBI official was warned that «at best, a sizeable percentage of the employee population was sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol.» Earlier this month, a former FBI supervisory special agent working for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York was arrested in connection with the attack on the Capitol. Court documents alleged that Jared Wise urged his colleagues to «kill» law enforcement officers protecting the Capitol that day.
The FBI has arrested more than 1,000 of the more than 3,000 people who could be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and hundreds of additional rioters have been identified but not yet arrested, NBC News reported.