FBI agent who pushed for scrutiny of Giuliani arrested for illegal disclosure of confidential info

An FBI agent who had publicly alleged that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani may have been compromised by Russia and who had denied that the FBI had mishandled its investigation of Hunter Biden was arrested this week for the illegal disclosure of confidential information.

The agent, Johnathan Buma, who had handled confidential human sources (CHSs) for the bureau and whose home had been raided by the FBI back in 2023, was arrested at JFK Airport in New York City on Monday night. 

He was about to board an international flight, new court filings reveal. A criminal complaint from the Justice Department was issued on Wednesday charging Buma with violating federal laws surrounding the disclosure of confidential information.

For a number of years, Buma had made allegations that the FBI was mishandling a variety of sensitive investigations, claiming his efforts to scrutinize former Giuliani, also a former New York City mayor, were blocked. Buma had also argued the FBI did not slow-walk its investigations of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

Fifty-one former intelligence officials released an October 2020 letter attempting to discredit New York Post stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, with the ex-spies baselessly arguing that the Russians were involved with the laptop. 

It was later revealed that former acting CIA Director Michael Morell wrote the laptop letter after being “prompted” by future Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do so, and that the debunked laptop letter was written to give Joe Biden a “talking point” in his debate with Trump ahead of the November 2020 election.

The IRS whistleblowers previously revealed that the FBI verified the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop by November 2019 – nearly a year before the laptop emerged and the infamous laptop letter was written.

“Buma printed approximately 130 files from the FBI’s internal network, several of which summarized information provided to the FBI by CHSs, some of which was clearly marked with warnings that made clear that the information was to be protected,” the new FBI affidavit against Buma said of his actions at a Los Angeles field office on October 27, 2023. “Buma also printed nine text-file documents which contained text that had been copied and pasted from reports which were marked in such a way that made clear that the information must be protected, and which summarized information provided to the FBI by CHSs. Buma also printed out screenshots of messages he exchanged with an FBI CHS via an encrypted messaging application. After printing those materials, Buma emailed FBI supervisors about his intent to go on leave without pay, then left the FBI office.”

The FBI special agent who wrote the criminal affidavit said that the 130 files taken by Byma included at least eight “sensitive information reports related to a foreign adversary” and at least eight reports “related to CHS information” from 2021 and 2022.

Buma worked for the FBI for 15 years, including working on counterintelligence matters from 2013 until February 2022. 

He had been assigned to the Los Angeles field office since 2018. The court filings said Buma’s duties included “managing confidential human sources” until December 2022. Buma was then assigned to a surveillance unit from January 2023 to November 2023.

The New York Times reported in May 2024 that at least four of the informants who Buma had been working with had been dropped by the FBI.

The criminal affidavit contends that, three days after Buma absconded with the confidential documents, he posted several messages online containing excerpts of a draft of a book he was writing about his FBI career – which contained information he had learned through his FBI job about FBI investigations into a foreign country’s WMD program.

The court filings also argue that, in the fall of 2023, “a U.S. media entity published an article containing confidential information related to reporting that was provided by a CHS to the FBI related to an associate of a foreign official and that Buma knew he had a duty to protect.”

The bureau raided Buma’s home on November 13, 2023. The criminal affidavit says that the FBI didn’t find any of the documents that Buma had taken from the bureau in October 2023 during that search, but that in December 2023 the bureau obtained a federal search warrant for his accounts and devices.

The court filings said Buma “began to voice his concerns” about investigations he was involved with to FBI leadership, Congress, and the media starting around 2022. The criminal affidavit said that Buma filed a complaint with the FBI’s Inspection Division in January 2022 claiming he had been retaliated against. Buma’s complaint was referred to the DOJ inspector general, who declined to pursue the matter.

“Am I mad at the FBI? You’re damn right I am and have good reason to be, akin to being mad at a brother who sucker punched me in the face,” Buma wrote on LinkedIn last year.

The leftwing outlet Mother Jones published a statement from Buma dated April 20, 2023 which he said he had provided to the GOP-led House Select Committee on the Weaponization of Government.

Buma claimed that he had “regularly de-conflicted and collaborated closely with designated members” from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and that “through my work as the primary case agent, recruiter, and handler of some of the most prolific and sensitive informants in the FBI, I became one of the top Agents working Russia/Ukraine matters specifically related to foreign influence over our elected officials.”

Mueller “did not establish”any criminal Trump-Russia collusion. 

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found huge flaws with the FBI’s investigation, criticizing the“central and essential” role of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

And special counsel John Durham’s report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel noted that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”

Buma had also claimed to the GOP-led House committee that “my very own informants were the first to provide the U.S. Government, directly through me, detailed supporting documentation concerning Hunter Biden's escapades in Ukraine with Burisma and how he used his position as the vice president's son to get a lucrative position.”

He argued in a September 2023 interview with Business Insider that the FBI had properly handled the Hunter Biden investigation, and suggested that efforts to go after Joe and Hunter Biden were part of a “disinformation campaign.” The now-arrested FBI agent said he told his co-handler fellow agent, “Why do they keep going back to the Bidens? What if this is the leading edge of a disinformation campaign to create a theme of derogatory information about the Bidens in anticipation that Biden will be Trump’s main political rival?”

Buma told the outlet that "the FBI made a diligent attempt to run the Biden material to the ground” and that “it wasn't slow-played.”

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley in 2022 cited whistleblower disclosures revealing that FBI agents investigating Hunter Biden “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” Grassley said whistleblowers showed him that “verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.”

IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler revealed how federal investigators had slow-walked the investigation into Hunter Biden. The whistleblowers revealed how their investigation into Biden’s dealings with CEFC China Energy – a since-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate – was blocked by higher-ups. Shapley testified that “after an electronic search warrant on Biden’s Apple iCloud led us to WhatsApp messages with several CEFC China Energy executives where he claimed to be sitting and discussing business with his father Joe Biden, we sought permission to follow up on the information in the messages” – but “prosecutors would not allow it.”

A federal prosecutor also instructed investigators to “don’t ask about the big guy” – in reference to Joe Biden.

Investigators were also reportedly blocked from investigating Hunter Biden’s lucrative business dealings in Ukraine through Burisma under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Outlets such as Business Insider and The New Yorker also published a statement from Buma dated July 15, 2023, which he said he had provided to the Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee

Buma again argued that there were Russian influences behind efforts to investigate Hunter Biden, writing that “I suspected at the time that this could have been an attempt by the RIS” – Russian intelligence services – “to push derogatory information into the U.S. Intelligence Community that would give the opposing political party” – the Republicans – “which had been shown to be favored by the RIS, a narrative to attack the character of Joseph R. Biden, in the event Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee, which did in fact occur several months later.”

Buma’s statement also detailed his “concerns that Giuliani may have been compromised by the RIS” – Russian intelligence. Buma told Business Insider that "Rudy Giuliani may have been compromised by individuals suspected of being involved in Russian counterintelligence influence operations.”

Giuliani has repeatedly denied this, and has never been charged with any crime alleging he was working with Russian intelligence.

The arguments pushed by Buma echoed many of the themes touted by Democrats in their efforts to impeach Donald Trump during his first term over his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

House Republicans on the Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees argued in December 2019 that “President Trump’s concerns about Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board are valid. The Obama State Department noted concerns about Hunter Biden’s relationship with Burisma in 2015 and 2016.” 

The Republican-led report added that “the evidence does not establish that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Burisma Holdings, Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, or Ukrainian influence in the 2016 election for the purpose of benefiting him in the 2020 election.”

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization Subcommittee also released an October 2024 report condemning the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

“Beginning in early 2020, the FBI embarked on a concerted campaign to preemptively debunk—or ‘prebunk’—allegations about the Biden family’s influence peddling. Federal agencies repeatedly warned social media platforms about a pre-election Russian influence operation relating to Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian company Burisma,” the GOP said. “In many of these meetings between federal agencies and Big Tech, the FBI raised the topic of potential ‘hack-and-leak’ operations amid conversations about ‘election security’ and potential foreign influence operations.”

The Republican report also states: “Then, when the New York Post reported on Biden family influence peddling the morning of October 14, 2020, Big Tech did exactly what it had been primed to do. The social media companies obediently treated the article as a potential Russian hack-and-leak operation and applied their content moderation policies to censor it, prevent it from spreading, and hide it from the American people.”

After his “sweetheart plea deal” collapsed, Hunter Biden was convicted by a Delaware jury on gun charges in June, and then pled guilty to tax charges in California in September. 

President Biden pardoned his son in December of 2024.