The 1,050-page House Judiciary Committee report on alleged misconduct by the FBI was released Friday by Republicans. It is based primarily upon testimony from whistleblowers.
The report, entitled “FBI Whistleblowers – What Their Disclosures Indicate about The Politicization of The FBI and The Justice Department,” stated that the FBI was “broken” under Director Christopher Wray and Attorney general Merrick Garland. It also blamed the agency’s “politicized bureaucracy”. Garland and Wray were accused of leading an agency that “altered and distorted evidence for federal courts, circumvented safeguards and exploited flaws in policies.”
As Republicans look to win the House majority, the report highlights key areas of oversight. The House Judiciary Committee Republicans and the House Oversight Committee Republicans have already pledged investigations into the FBI, intelligence community and Hunter Biden’s business dealings. They also promised to investigate the handling of the probe into Hunter Biden and the surveillance of school board meetings.
The executive summary stated that FBI whistleblowers spoke with Republican staff members on the committee. They claimed that the FBI was “rotted in its core” and maintained “a systemic culture of unaccountability as well as being full o rampant corruption, manipulation and abuse. It also suggested that the FBI could be distorting resources from criminal investigations to more politically-relevant areas.
The report alleges that the FBI “manufactured a controversy over domestic violent extremism” by “orchestrating” a failed plot to kidnap the Democratic Governor. Gretchen Whitmer, a Michigan resident, was arrested in 2020. The Bureau also claimed that it tried to minimize the allegations of wrongdoing from Hunter Biden. He is currently being investigated by David C. Weiss (Delaware’s U.S Attorney), for tax-related felonies. This holdover from Trump’s administration.
Another allegation is that some conservative employees were “purged” by the FBI for opposing its efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The report describes it as a “woke agenda” and has been widely criticized by Republicans who claim that this bias violates the freedom-of-conscience of any conservative federal employees who disagree with it.
One FBI employee claimed to the committee that they were told by their FBI superiors that child sexual abuse material investigations are no longer a priority. They should refer to local law enforcement authorities. Another claimed that the FBI had an illegal partnership with Facebook where it allegedly accepted private user data from Facebook without consenting to legal process.
The FBI is currently under intense scrutiny by Republicans in Congress, for many reasons. In August, the FBI raided the Mar-a-Lago estate of ex-President Donald Trump in Florida. This led to several accusations of improper procedure, including the FBI taking materials under attorney-client privilege and the appointment a Special Master to review all documents seized.
After an alleged order by Garland to the FBI, to monitor parents’ participation in Northern Virginia school board meetings, the bureau was also inspected. Parents have been known to attend school board meetings in protest of the inclusion of controversial concepts about race and gender in curricula. This has been supported by Republicans.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
