The Federal Bureau of Investigation has revoked the security clearances of three officers who either participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol or later expressed views about it that expressed their “loyalty to the United States,” the agency said in a letter Wednesday. to congressional researchers.
The letter, written by a top FBI official, came a day before at least two of the agents — Marcus Allen and Stephen Friend — were scheduled to testify before a House Judiciary subcommittee investigating what Republicans believe is the “weaponization” of the federal government against conservatives.
For several months, Republican lawmakers have been courting FBI agents who they say support their claims that the agency and other federal agencies turned against former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters both before and after the attack on the Capitol.
Some agents have described themselves as whistleblowers and have taken steps such as writing a letter to FBI leaders complaining about the ways the agency has discriminated against conservatives.
The agents whose security clearances have been revoked — Mr. Allen, Mr. Friend and a third man, Brett Gloss — have all been suspended by the FBI while the agency reviews their cases, Congressional investigators said.
Lawyers for Mr Allen and Mr Friend did not respond to messages asking for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Gloss was not immediately available.
Mr. Gloss’s top-secret endorsement was revoked two weeks ago after agency detectives found that while traveling with the pro-Trump crowd on Jan. 6, he entered a restricted area of the Capitol — a violation of federal law .
Although he has not been charged with any crimes, the FBI has determined that Mr. Gloss provided “false and/or misleading information” about what he saw on January 6 and whether he was in a restricted area that day. to the letter, which was sent by Christopher Dunham, acting deputy director of the FBI, to Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan and chairman of the Armaments Subcommittee.
Mr. Gloss denied witnessing any violence or being in the restricted area of the Capitol, but those statements were inconsistent with the photos he took on Jan. 6 and the publicly available videos, the letter said. Mr. Gloss also failed to report his presence near the Capitol, the letter added, even after being warned to do so by one of his supervisors.
“Mr. Gloss’s refusal to provide full, candid and truthful answers to lawful inquiries from security officers related to any personnel safety or reliability determination should result in an adverse clearance action,” the letter said.
Mr Allen’s top-secret security clearance was revoked after the agency discovered he had “expressed condolences to individuals or organizations advocating, threatening or using violence or violence,” the letter said. FBI investigators determined that months after the U.S. Capitol attack, Mr. Allen sent an email from his desk account to several colleagues urging them to “exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuing any investigative questions or leads pertaining to until the events of January 6. said the letter.
Mr. Allen also sent an email with a link to a website that said “federal law enforcement had some degree of infiltration among the crowds gathered at the Capitol.” participation in the uprising.
FBI investigators also found that Mr. Allen, who last year filed a lawsuit against Mr. Wray challenging the initial suspension of his endorsement, failed to provide relevant information to fellow agents investigating the riot about people allegedly taking part in the attack, the letter said.
The letter said that when another agent asked Mr Allen to conduct an open source investigation into a January 6 suspect, he reported that he had found no information that the person had engaged in criminal activity or any “connection to terrorism”.
Based on Mr. Allen’s reports, the letter said, the other agent closed the case, but it was later reopened after another FBI employee discovered publicly available information showing that the target of the investigation assaulted police officers at the Capitol. .
Mr Friend, whose security clearance was revoked on Tuesday, had last summer refused to take part in a SWAT raid of a January 6 suspect who was about to be arrested on felony charges. Mr Friend had taken the position that the raid amounted to excessive use of force.
“I took an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Mr. Friend, a 12-year veteran of the agency, told his supervisors when he refused to participate in the Aug. 24 raid in Jacksonville, Fla. “I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”
According to Justice Department records, as of Aug. 24, there was only one arrest related to Jan. 6 in the Jacksonville area: that of Tyler Bensch, who was accused of being a member of a right-wing militia associated with the Three Percenter movement. .
What Mr. Friend left out of his account was that while Mr. Bensch was only charged with misconduct, documents in his case say that on Jan. 6, he posted video of himself outside the Capitol wearing body armor and a gas mask and a rifle in AR -15 style. The documents also say that witnesses later told the FBI that they had seen pictures of Mr. Bensch carrying a similar rifle at other times.
According to the letter, Mr. Friend had “an alternate story about what happened at the Capitol” while communicating with his supervisors about his refusal to participate in Mr. Bensch’s arrest.
The letter also stated that in September 2022, Mr Friend downloaded documents from FBI computer systems onto “an unauthorized removable flash drive”. The letter did not state what kind of documents Mr. Friend had taken with him.