Thread by @tristanleavitt

🚨🚨 These records the FBI produced to @JudicialWatch showing the FBI's coordination with House Democrats to smear our clients are a HUGE deal: .

When Marcus Allen, @RealStevefriend, @GOBactual and I testified before @JudiciaryGOP's @Weaponization on May 18, 2023, we strongly suspected the FBI or DOJ had coordinated with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

That's why @EMPOWR_us filed this FOIA request with DOJ the day of that hearing for DOJ communications with one staffer for Ranking Member Nadler: .

It looks like the problem was worse than we thought.

Let's walk through the timeline of how this played out... 🧵judicialwatch.org/documents/jw-v…
empowr.us/wp-content/upl…

Throughout February 2023, @JudiciaryGOP conducted bipartisan transcribed interviews of several FBI whistleblowers as part of @Weaponization’s investigation into the politicization of the FBI.

Rather than focusing on the substance of the whistleblowers’ disclosures, Judiciary Democrats spent most of those interviews talking about tweets, press interviews, or other First Amendment activity the whistleblowers had engaged in.

It seems doubtful that Democratic staff spent hundreds of hours poring over podcast interviews with @kyleseraphin to find the material, raising the question of where they obtained it.

@JudicialWatch @RealStevefriend @GOBactual @JudiciaryGOP @Weaponization Judiciary Republicans would eventually release a number of portions of those transcripts on May 18, after giving the witnesses the opportunity to review the transcripts for accuracy.
judiciary.house.gov/media/press-re…

@JudicialWatch @RealStevefriend @GOBactual @JudiciaryGOP @Weaponization But in the meantime, on 3/2/23, House Democrats released a bunch of the interview transcripts in a smear report on the FBI whistleblowers. For instance, the report claimed @JusticeOIG had rejected Steve Friend's disclosures—a claim the OIG soon corrected.

@JudicialWatch @RealStevefriend @GOBactual @JudiciaryGOP @Weaponization @JusticeOIG The House Democrat report was released my second day as @EMPOWR_us president after leaving my position on @USMSPB two days earlier, where I adjudicated whistleblower cases. I had never seen anything so mangle the concept of whistleblowing as their report.

The staff report made clear to our client Marcus Allen that Judiciary Democrats had no reservations about attacking whistleblowers and selectively leaking transcript portions without him having an opportunity to respond, so he informed Judiciary Republicans he would only sit for an interview if Democrat staff were not present. The interview happened May 8, 2023.

But the next day, on May 9, an unidentified supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Office Congressional Affairs emailed @RepDanGoldman’s deputy chief of staff and legislative director, Erin Meegan: “I would…like to know what issues Rep. Goldman and your office are interested in to see if there is any way I can assist in those areas. Additionally, based on my background, I think I may be able to provide insight or answer some questions about issues that do not require senior FBI leadership briefings or hearings.”

One week later, Goldman senior counsel Damon Marx emailed the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs with the subject line, “Weaponization Hearing on Thursday”: “I have a few questions about some of the witnesses.”

(Presumably Marx’s questions were about the three current or former FBI witnesses, unless he was hoping to ask whether the FBI had some sort of file on me, the fourth witness.)

After being routed to the right FBI official, Marx emailed, “It’s my understanding that you’re out this week, but if you have a moment to chat about some of these witnesses for Thursday’s Weaponization hearing, it would be super helpful.” Apparently Marx talked to the FBI official on May 17, the day before our hearing.

The Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) protects the personal information of current and former FBI employees unless one of its several exceptions is applied. There is an exception at b(9) for committees or subcommittees of jurisdiction. When I worked in the Minority staff on the @SenJudiciaryGOP, we routinely argued that this statute didn’t prevent agencies from producing information to both Majority and Minority, which constitute the “Committee.”

But as overjoyed as I might be to see the FBI had abandoned its longstanding opposition to this argument, it would still require that the FBI produce to the Majority any information it produces to the Minority.

That same day as the FBI Congressional Affairs official handling Weaponization issues chatted with Goldman’s staff, that FBI office sent a letter to the Committee detailing allegations against Empower clients Marcus Allen and Steve Friend. (Steve Friend was also notified the same day that his clearance was revoked, with timing that as he pointed out was clearly “dubious.”)

The letter included a number of allegations about Marcus Allen the FBI did not even ask about in his clearance suspension interview. Some were a simple misunderstanding, and some were outright false and made up out of whole cloth, as he made clear in the May 18 hearing.

The letter was immediately leaked on May 17 to major news outlets, which breathlessly covered it.

@washingtonpost covered only the letter, and not the hearing itself. They have yet to write an update about Allen’s security clearance being reinstated.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…

In a June 2, 2023 interview, FBI Security Division Assistant Director Jennifer Moore claimed her office didn’t leak the letter, but she never investigated. ()

In fact, it’s not clear that anyone at the FBI or DOJ ever investigated whether the leak came from any of their staff—such as the supervisory special agent in FBI Congressional Affairs sharing documents with Goldman’s staff.judiciary.house.gov/media/press-re…

Did Goldman’s staff get an advance copy of the letter of the May 17 smear letter? Maybe. Goldman certainly referenced it plenty in the hearing, including a portion the FBI completely made up about having warned Marcus Allen not to pass around information (which was literally part of his job).

But Marx later thanked the FBI official for “sending over those documents,” which he said were “very helpful to the Congressman.” So it sounds like it was more than just this letter.

Ironically, Goldman was one of the foremost Members arguing during the hearing that if one side of the Committee received information, the other side was entitled to it as well.

Goldman later said: “We’re in the dark, and that’s not how Congress works. That’s not how Committees work.” Then he asked me if it was how things were supposed to work.

I pointed out to him that it’s actually fairly common for whistleblowers to only talk to one side or the other, a point he seemed to concede.

But what is NOT common is an agency sharing information with a personal congressional office that it doesn’t share with anyone else.

The FBI’s FOIA production to @JudicialWatch doesn’t include the documents the FBI gave to Goldman’s office in response to its request for information about the whistleblowers. But the whistleblowers AND the American public deserve to know what was in those documents.

@JudicialWatch DOJ also needs to respond to @Empowr_us’s request about communications with staff. We have a right to see who else the FBI and DOJ coordinated with in advance of the hearing, and whether they improperly shared information or documents with other offices.

empowr.us/empower-appeal…