Thread by @JMichaelWaller

I just listened to Steve Baker's entire podcast with FBI whistleblower @RealSteveFriend.

A sincere, enlightening look at the inner workings of the @FBI at the field level, and how weaponization of the bureaucracy tries to crush agents for following their conscience. @TPC4USA

https://twitter.com/TPC4USA/status/1620599934960668673

1) Thread of paraphrasings and quotations from suspended FBI special agent @realSteveFriend (SF) in the @TPC4USA podcast:

FBI HQ shut down investigations into child porn, child exploitation, and human trafficking to pursue misdemeanor cases against J6 trespassers.

2) FBI HQ opened up hundreds of J6 'domestic terrorism' cases in field offices across the country in part to inflate its domestic terrorism statistics and to check the boxes so that SES-level agents could get more promotions and pay.

3) SF: Heads of @FBI field offices 'get bonuses for essentially having met certain standards they set for themselves the prior year, how many domestic terrorism cases are we going to have open ... there is a demand for that are vastly exceeding the supply.'

4) SF: 'what’s going on with J6 is atypical. I’ve arrested over 150 violent criminals in my career in the FBI. Not once did I have to use a tactical team, or a team of 30 agents with full body armor.'

5) After SF raised concerns with his @FBI supervisor about 'the process being the punishment,' in politicized cases, the supervisor agreed, then said SF should think about his career and urged him to get counseling. SF was then suspended without pay, indefinitely.

6) The FBI supervisor of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Jacksonville voiced concerns about the legitimacy of the J6 'investigations,' but then he got promoted and kept his opinions to himself.

7) FBI skirts whistleblower protection laws by invoking national security to turn the screws on its own agents.

It suspends their security clearances, rendering them unable to work in the FBI, then suspends them without pay because they are not working, SF says.

8) Because indefinitely suspended FBI personnel are still considered FBI employees, they cannot get outside work. FBI Office of Integrity Compliance must approve requests to do outside work. In these cases, it denies the requests in order to deny him income.

9) This is one way the FBI leadership prevents more agents from coming forward. More than two dozen FBI special agents have already done so, however, most anonymously.

10) FBI then leaks derogatory personal information from whistleblowers' confidential personnel files to friendly reporters in order to discredit the critics. This is a crime, but FBI officials do it anyway with impunity. Nobody will investigate the crime.

11) @RealStevefriend: If the House panel on weaponization of govt 'prioritizes what's going on with the whistleblowers receiving adverse action for making protected disclosures ... you will see them coming out in droves.'

Follow @TPC4USA here, on his Substack, and his podcasts.