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Need a reason to get your ass to the polls in November? Look no further than Senator Ron Johnson’s website, where that demented cheese curd is currently trumpeting his own patriotic response to “new whistleblower allegations that FBI policy and protocol were breached in active domestic terrorism investigations and assessments relating to January 6, 2021.” By which he means that he’s championing the cause of the treason weasels who tried to overthrow the government in the Capitol Riot.
The press release, flagged by NBC reporter Ryan Reilly, links to a letter sent by Johnson, the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray about their supposed FBI whistleblower. Johnson also links to a New York Post article by Trump stalwart Miranda Devine, who was delighted to repackage their wild allegations into a tale of an “American hero, the father of two small children, [who] has blown up his ‘dream career’ because he could not live with his conscience if he continued to be part of what he sees as the unjust persecution of conservative Americans.”
Let’s check in on that “hero”, shall we?
Friends, meet former FBI Special Agent Stephen Friend of the Jacksonville/Daytona Beach Field Office, who threw away his career after refusing to participate in any January 6 investigations. Friend, who uses scare quotes around the words “domestic violent extremism,” was none too pleased about being transferred from child pornography investigations to the homegrown terrorist beat and claims that the federal government is now getting out of the business of investigating child sex abuse material and will be referring those cases to local law enforcement. (Really?)
Officer Friendly alleges that the FBI is violating its own protocols by allowing agents in DC to retain control of cases, supervising agents in local field offices who might otherwise be in charge of investigating the guys they round up. To a rational person, this might seem to be a reasonable accommodation for a crime which involved joint criminal conduct perpetrated in DC by wackos summoned from all over the country by a rapacious madman bent on retaining his hold on power. But for reasons unclear, Friendly seems to think this amounts to exculpatory evidence which will have to be disclosed to potential defendants under the so-called Brady rule. And no, this guy is not a lawyer. But he did used to be an accountant, so same difference, right?
On August 24, 2022, Friend’s unit was scheduled to arrest multiple members of the Three Percenters militia. The week before, Friend complained to his supervisor that “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, D.C.” Not for nothing, but that would seem to be many steps above Friend’s pay grade. Moreover, as Reilly points out, only one of the arrestees that day was facing misdemeanor charges, and it seems pretty clear why the government would want to detain that guy without dicking around with a subpoena or summons as Friend suggested.
Friend went on to tell his supervisor that he wasn’t going to take part in any more January 6 arrests, likening the January 6 prosecutions to the Ruby Ridge case, and opining that “some of the people who entered the Capitol committed crimes, but others were innocent.” He continued to inveigh about violations of the Sixth and Eighth Amendments, presumably because January 6 defendants are being tried in DC — where they committed crimes! — and sometimes detained there pending trial.
When informed that an FBI agent cannot refuse an assignment which is constitutional, within FBI guidelines, and presents no risk to his physical safety, Friend insisted that “the J6 investigations violate all three elements.” Perhaps cognizant of the contradiction between the insistence that the militia members were both too dangerous to arrest and also peaceful patriots who should be gently nudged via summons, Friend’s supervisors then relieved him of duty.
Friend characterizes this predictable result of his refusal to do his job, as well as the subsequent revocation of his security clearance, as “reprisals.” And of course Grassley and Johnson, not to mention the New York Post, are happy to go along with this wheeze.
The senators huffily demand to know “the FBI’s policy rationale for suspending employees without pay prior to the completion of security clearance reviews,” suggesting that removing an officer who refuses to do his job is simply “a pretext for whistleblower reprisal.”
Let’s take a wildass guess that Ron Johnson, who is up to his ass in the fake electors scheme, wouldn’t get his panties in a bunch if the FBI suspended an agent for refusing to arrest Black Lives Matters protesters. Also, there’s the minor issue of linear time, since Friend appears to have filed his whistleblower report two days after being removed from duty, which would seem to put paid to any allegation that firing him was an act of reprisal for blowing the whistle.
“Please describe the steps you are taking to ensure that Special Agent Friend’s security clearance is reinstated and that all other forms of reprisal against him for his protected whistleblowing activity are immediately stopped,” the senators go on, demanding a full briefing on the matter.
And you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll do it, too, if they get back control of either house of Congress. These filthy bastards will wind up canonizing Friend, Ashley Babbitt, the QAnon Shaman, and the rest of the treasonous fuckers who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Because patriotism is cool, and all, but have you tried selling out your country and lionizing to score cheap political points against your partisan opponents?
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