Miranda Devine on FBI Special Agent Steve Friend
- 2 years ago
Miranda Devine: "I learned that Steve friend, FBI Special Agent Still Serving, who was suspended on Monday, is an American hero. He had the dream job. He's been with the FBI twelve years, he's a SWAT team member. But he just could not live with his conscience after he was dragged off these very important por*, child exploitation, human trafficking investigations that he was working CPL-17
on and put on these really bogus January 6 cases that just served to, I guess, back up the rhetoric that we're hearing from the White House that domestic terrorism is the worst threat to America since the Civil War.
And so he could see from on the ground how the FBI Washington field office was manipulating these CPL-3
cases to try and expand and pretend that the problem was bigger than it was. And he also didn't want to participate in SWAT raids on people who had just were being accused of misdemeanors, at worst, innocent American citizens. And they were being told to investigate people who hadn't even gone to Washington DC that day. In one case, a man had been at his son's funeral that day, yet he had FBI agents knocking on his door.
People were being surveilled. This is just such an abuse of their civil rights. And Steve Friend stood up and said, I will not do this. He did everything the right way. He complained to all his supervisors. He told them what FBI rules were being violated and what policies were not being followed and what constitutional rights of American citizens were being abused. CPL-6
And he was ignored. He was threatened. And he's now this afternoon filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.
And he's also been talking to Senator Chuck Grassley and some of the Republicans about his complaints. And he is there. You see his photograph online. 37 year old man, father of two young children. It took a lot of courage to do this at great risk to himself and blowing up a career. He loved it's."
on and put on these really bogus January 6 cases that just served to, I guess, back up the rhetoric that we're hearing from the White House that domestic terrorism is the worst threat to America since the Civil War.
And so he could see from on the ground how the FBI Washington field office was manipulating these CPL-3
cases to try and expand and pretend that the problem was bigger than it was. And he also didn't want to participate in SWAT raids on people who had just were being accused of misdemeanors, at worst, innocent American citizens. And they were being told to investigate people who hadn't even gone to Washington DC that day. In one case, a man had been at his son's funeral that day, yet he had FBI agents knocking on his door.
People were being surveilled. This is just such an abuse of their civil rights. And Steve Friend stood up and said, I will not do this. He did everything the right way. He complained to all his supervisors. He told them what FBI rules were being violated and what policies were not being followed and what constitutional rights of American citizens were being abused. CPL-6
And he was ignored. He was threatened. And he's now this afternoon filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.
And he's also been talking to Senator Chuck Grassley and some of the Republicans about his complaints. And he is there. You see his photograph online. 37 year old man, father of two young children. It took a lot of courage to do this at great risk to himself and blowing up a career. He loved it's."