EXCLUSIVE: The FBI is allegedly engaging in a “purge” of employees with conservative viewpoints and retaliating against whistleblowers who have made protected disclosures to Congress by revoking security clearances, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital.
Jordan, R-Ohio, said that more than a dozen FBI whistleblowers have come to him and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee with allegations of misconduct within the FBI.
Jordan and Republicans have been investigating “serious allegations of abuse and misconduct within the senior leadership of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Jordan, in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, and written to FBI executive assistant director of the Human Resources branch Jennifer Moore, the congressman says he has received information of retaliation against FBI employees who have confidentially reported alleged misconduct to Congress.
GRASSLEY SAYS NEW WHISTLEBLOWER INFO REVEALS ‘DEEPLY ROOTED POLITICAL INFECTION’ WITHIN THE FBI
Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, speaks to the press in the Rayburn House Office building in Washington, D.C., on Friday, June 4, 2021. (Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“During the course of this investigation, we have received protected whistleblower disclosures that the FBI is engaging in a ‘purge’ of employees with conservative views by revoking their security clearances and indefinitely suspending these employees,” Jordan wrote, noting that “many of the formal notices” for those personnel actions had been signed by Moore.
Jordan also wrote that he has information suggesting Moore has “retaliated against at least one whistleblower who has made protected disclosures to Congress.”
That whistleblower, Jordan told Fox News Digital, shared information with the committee notifying them about the Justice Department’s efforts last fall to set up a threat tag label against parents to identify threats at school board meetings against faculty and to then “prosecute them when appropriate.”
FLASHBACK: HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEMAND FBI DISCLOSE HOW IT IS COMPLYING WITH DOJ SCHOOL BOARD MEMO
“As we informed Director Christopher Wray, we take whistleblower retaliation seriously and we therefore require that you appear for a transcribed interview as soon as possible,” Jordan said.
Jordan also said that FBI whistleblowers have told the committee that Moore has been “involved with the security clearance revocations for those employees targeted for their conservative views.”
Jordan told Fox News Digital that those employees had made comments to him and Republicans on the committee about pressure within the FBI to label cases as “domestic violent extremism.” Jordan also said that whistleblowers have told him that the FBI is “pulling agents off of child trafficking cases to focus on this political narrative that you see.”
“We refer to that as juicing the numbers—its pressure that is existing at the FBI to satisfy this narrative from President Biden, where he called half the country fascist and extremists,” Jordan explained, referring to Biden’s speech last month in which he said “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy.
Jordan said that under Title 5 of the United States Code, once a whistleblower makes a protected disclosure, an agency is prohibited from retaliating against the employee for that disclosure by taking or failing to take a personnel action.
Jordan said that “the law is clear.”
General view of the J. Edgar Hoover F.B.I. Building in Washington, U.S., March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert (Reuters/Mary F. Calvert)
“You don’t retaliate against whistleblowers,” Jordan told Fox News Digital. “We’ve had multiple agents come to us, and tell us about just how political the Justice Department has become.”
When asked how the FBI learned that employees claimed whistleblower status and met with Congress, Jordan said it was unclear, and said the FBI likely would say suspensions were due to something “unrelated.”
The House Judiciary Committee has legislative and oversight jurisdiction over both the Justice Department and the FBI. Jordan said Moore’s testimony is “necessary” for his oversight.
Jordan said his letter also serves as a “formal request” for Moore and the FBI to preserve all existing and future records and materials in their possession relating to the topics addressed.
“You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry,” Jordan wrote, adding that the electronic messages sent using her official and personal accounts or devices, including records created using text messages, phone-based message applications, or encryption software.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in Hart Building on Thursday, August, 4, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The letter was signed by Jordan, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, as well as Rep. Mike Johnson, the ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
The FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
“Step back and view it in context—this is all happening in addition to the FBI raiding the home of a former president; in addition to the FBI taking the phone of a sitting member of Congress; in addition to the Democrats and Joe Biden passing legislation which is going to unleash 87,000 IRS agents on we the people, we the taxpayers,” Jordan said.”So, when you view it in context, it’s almost like, just when you think it can’t get worse, they ratchet it up another level.”
Republicans have been sounding the alarm on the FBI’s unprecedented raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Congressional Republicans also slammed the FBI throughout the Trump administration for its original investigation into whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Special Counsel John Durham is now investigating the origins of that probe.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, whistleblowers have reported to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that the FBI falsely labeled derogatory information on Hunter Biden as disinformation ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and instructed employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop after the FBI had obtained it.
FBI Director Christopher Wray, during Senate testimony last month, said that those whistleblower allegations were “deeply troubling.”
But Jordan told Fox News Digital that he thinks it is “amazing that this many whistleblowers come talk to us while we’re in the minority.”
“We can’t really do anything other than write letters…that’s all we can do,” Jordan said. “But they’re willing to do it because it just underscores how egregious the activity is, and what’s really going on there, that we now have had 14 agents come talk to us.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“All we can do is highlight it, and if we get the majority, we’re going to do more investigations, where we can actually subpoena people to do depositions,” Jordan said, adding that he is sending letters to FBI officials now to let them know to “preserve documents, preserve information.”
He added: “If in fact the American people put us in charge, we’re going to want access to the information.”
