Press Release
September 19, 2024

WASHINGTON – In a letter today to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Empower Oversight disclosed explosive new information about politicization and whistleblower retaliation by various senior Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials, including Jeffrey Veltri. Veltri is now the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the FBI’s Miami Field Office supervising the investigation into the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Tristan Leavitt, President of Empower Oversight, will testify Wednesday, September 25 before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government alongside Marcus Allen, a former FBI employee and whistleblower. The FBI retaliated against Allen by revoking his security clearance, which was later restored based on an appeal filed by Empower Oversight while the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz conducted a parallel inquiry. Horowitz will also testify at the hearing.

In the letter, Leavitt wrote:

Yesterday, Empower Oversight submitted to the Department of Justice Inspector General a detailed 29-page complaint with evidence that the FBI retaliated against at least four of its own SecD employees after they made internal protected disclosures. These SecD whistleblowers reported FBI abuses of the security clearance process involving Mr. Allen, as well as several other cases, some of which remain non-public.

When Mr. Allen and I previously testified on May 18, 2023 alongside Special Agent O’Boyle and former SA Steve Friend, we had significantly less insight into what had happened behind the scenes in SecD than we do now—thanks to these whistleblowers from inside SecD itself. Empower Oversight is now representing several of the SecD employees who worked on the Allen case, and has spoken to a number of other witnesses from inside the FBI. Through their disclosures, as well as the documents provided by the FBI, we have uncovered a more complete picture of the disturbing scope and breadth of the FBI’s illegal retaliation.”

The 22-page letter included a number of new facts:

  • Now-SAC Jeffrey Veltri’s appointment as the Miami SAC was delayed because of an investigation into his retaliation against whistleblowers.
  • Veltri revoked the security clearance of an FBI employee who questioned the outcome of the 2020 election, suggesting the employee wasn’t entitled to a clearance because they didn’t believe in the U.S. Constitution.
  • The FBI contractors who used a printed outline with inappropriate questions about FBI employees’ personal political and medical views spoke often of their fear of displeasing FBI leadership.
  • The FBI knew SA Garret O’Boyle had made protected disclosures to Congress when it made the decision to suspend his security clearance.
  • FBI officials pushed for the revocation of SA O’Boyle’s clearance in order to retroactively remedy a false statement a former FBI executive made to Congress.

To read the 22-page letter, click here.

Below is a list of past Empower Oversight updates from 2024 regarding the politicization of the FBI:

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