WASHINGTON – Empower Oversight has disclosed to Congress yet another example of the politicization of the FBI’s Security Division (“SecD”). In a letter to Chairman Jim Jordan, Empower Oversight wrote that a whistleblower within SecD with first-hand knowledge reports the FBI knew its allegations against an agent who had testified before the House Judiciary Committee were false, but hid the truth from Congress to justify the improper suspension of his security clearance. This information comes one day before FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Judiciary Committee.
“Our client wishes to disclose exculpatory information regarding Special Agent Garret O’Boyle that the FBI withheld from the Committee,” Empower Oversight president, Tristan Leavitt wrote. Empower Oversight’s client is a supervisory special agent who witnessed first hand the FBI’s Security Division’s weaponization of the security clearance process.
According to the Empower Oversight letter, then-Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Leigh Moore failed to inform the Judiciary Committee that the FBI was aware SA O’Boyle was not the anonymous agent masked in a May 11, 2022 Project Veritas interview, which was the false allegation that was key to the FBI’s suspension and ultimate revocation of O’Boyle’s security clearance.
Early in O’Boyle’s 22-month suspension, the FBI determined he was not the source in the Project Veritas video through voice analysis, but the FBI withheld that key fact from Congress, kept O’Boyle in limbo without pay, and recently revoked his clearance on the eve on new congressional hearings.
“In contrast with Marcus Allen’s ultimate vindication, the FBI has escaped accountability thus far for what it did to SA O’Boyle. It continues its never-ending cycle of retaliation even to this day, revoking SA O’Boyle’s clearance and suspending the clearance of our SecD whistleblower client in reprisal for objecting to SecD’s abuse of this process against SA O’Boyle and others. It’s using the same playbook of delay tactics, and will continue to do so until Congress enacts fundamental reforms to the security clearance adjudication process and FBI wrongdoers are held accountable,” Leavitt wrote in the letter.
The Security Division’s pattern of political behavior is outlined throughout the Empower Oversight letter to Jordan. O’Boyle started making protected disclosures in 2021 to his chain of command and then to Congress only after it became clear that his disclosures were not being taken seriously or investigated by the FBI.
O’Boyle’s story has been shared with the committee in both closed door testimony and in a public May 18, 2023 hearing, and follows the same pattern of retaliation to that of Allen, leaving him in a years-long state of limbo for he and his family, including the loss of his recently purchased home after the FBI suspended him following a transfer to Virginia from Kansas.
The statements made by Moore to the committee are riddled with contradictions based on the firsthand knowledge of SecD whistleblower and the written policies of the FBI. Her misleading testimony, omitting the key evidence of O’Boyle’s innocence, prompted Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler and Weaponization Subcommittee Ranking Member Stacey Plaskett to attempt to convince the Justice Department to prosecute O’Boyle for perjury.
Leavitt further explained in the letter, “This material omission from EAD Moore’s testimony may at least partially explain why the FBI revoked other whistleblowers’ clearances on the eve of my and their May 18, 2023 public testimony before your committee – but kept SA O’Boyle in the indefinite suspended-but-not-revoked limbo for 22 months. Now the FBI has finally revoked SA O’Boyle’s clearance on the eve of another hearing likely to expose its false allegations against SA O’Boyle, among other failures. The FBI’s revocation notice contains new, vague, and untested allegations that will undoubtedly be leaked to the media to further smear SA O’Boyle ahead of your hearing.”
For Leavitt’s full letter to Jordan click here.