‘Weaponization’: FBI whistleblower wants clearance back after punishment by Biden bureau leaders

An FBI agent who blew the whistle on “politicization and weaponization” within the bureau is asking the FBI, now led by Kash Patel, to reinstate his security clearance after it was revoked “in reprisal” by the Biden FBI.

Lawyers for FBI special agent Garret O’Boyle said in letter Wednesday to the bureau that their client was punished after he shone a light on the DOJ and FBI allegedly putting protesting parents in the crosshairs, inflating the domestic terrorism threat, targeting pro-lifers, and other politically-motivated investigations during the tenure of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Jason Foster, the chair and founder of Empower Oversight, argued in the letter obtained by Just the News that the decision by Biden FBI leadership to revoke O’Boyle’s clearance was improper for three main reasons: because it was allegedly done “in reprisal for protected whistleblower disclosures,” because the revocation allegedly “did not meet the standards” under federal guidelines and because the revoking of his clearance “violated the First Amendment.”

Just the News learned that the letter was sent to the FBI’s Human Resources Branch and the FBI’s Security Division (SecD). Foster argued to the FBI that “SecD’s revocation decision should be reversed, SA O’Boyle’s clearance should be reinstated, and he should be immediately returned to duty and provided back pay for his time on unpaid leave.”

The legal team for O’Boyle includes Empower Oversight, the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Binnall Law Group.

Just the News also learned Empower Oversight separately wrote to the FBI earlier this month that “the security clearance suspension was based on a knowingly false assumption (based on later whistleblower testimony) that O’Boyle had leaked Project Veritas case information to Project Veritas and had allegedly improperly accessed various FBI files.”

The legal team said then that O’Boyle “seeks reinstatement of his clearance, revocation of his indefinite suspension of employment, full reinstatement to the FBI with back pay and related benefits, damages for leaving his family homeless and without belongings for months,” and other restitution.

The FBI suspended O'Boyle just as he was planning to move his family from Kansas to Virginia for a job transfer. 

O’Boyle was “in the process of transferring to a selective new unit the FBI was establishing in Quantico” when his security clearance was suspended. 

He had sold his home and was waiting to close on his new one. Yet, O’Boyle was suspended during the move and the FBI prevented him from accessing his family’s belongings being held by the bureau, his lawyers said. All of this left him and his family in “limbo” for years as the bureau adjudicated his suspension and his clearance.

Foster pointed to O’Boyle’s “distinguished record of service to our country.” The new filing with the FBI noted that O’Boyle had served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army from and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan and that he worked as a police officer for the Waukesha Police Department for four years. O’Boyle was hired by the FBI in July 2018 and was assigned to the Kansas City Division’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and by 2020 he was chosen for the Kansas City Division’s SWAT team.

O’Boyle’s lawyers said that his security clearance was suspended in September 2022, and that the FBI “issued a decision suspending SA O’Boyle indefinitely from duty without pay” in November 2022. His lawyers added that “for twenty-two months after the FBI suspended SA O’Boyle, it failed to adjudicate his clearance, leaving him in an unpaid limbo during which he had no access to the basis for his clearance suspension and, hence, was unable to challenge it.”

Then-FBI Executive Assistant Director Timothy Dunham revoked O’Boyle’s clearance July 16, 2024.

It was announced on Tuesday that two IRS whistleblowers who shed light on failures to properly investigate Hunter Biden — and who were retaliated against by their Biden-era superiors as a result — were given promotions by the new Trump-led Treasury Department. The whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, are also represented by Empower Oversight.

"Our clients seek only fair and just treatment on the merits, but normal bureaucratic processes often fail to achieve that goal on any reasonable timeline," Foster told Just the News on Wednesday. "Treasury Secretary Bessent led the way yesterday by doing the right thing that was in his power, rather than waiting on permission from permanent DC bureaucrats to stop the retaliation against the IRS whistleblowers. Our FBI whistleblower clients have suffered years of unjust and unchecked abuse, forced into indefinite limbo with no pay and no due process. The President and the Attorney General have ordered agencies to find and fix exactly this kind of government weaponization, and our clients shouldn’t have to wait even longer."

Leaking and perjury claims debunked

A top FBI official told Congress in 2023 that the bureau believed O'Boyle was the suspected leaker in an anonymously filmed interview with the undercover citizen-journalism organization Project Veritas in 2022. This misleading claim even led some congressional Democrats to urge a criminal investigation of the agent.

Foster wrote in his new letter that “partisan allies of the FBI in Congress had targeted O’Boyle with a bogus criminal referral to the DOJ – which the FBI knew was baseless.”

Just the News reported in 2024 that video, a whistleblower complaint, and interviews showed the bureau identified the wrong suspect. Raw footage from Project Veritas showed that former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, another whistleblower, was the one who gave the interview in question. Seraphin confirmed to Just the News he was the interviewed agent, not O'Boyle, whose security clearance was suspended in part on the bureau's assertions that he had leaked to Project Veritas.

Then-FBI Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Leigh Moore, who testified to the Judiciary Committee in April and June 2023, provided lawmakers information about the basis for suspending O’Boyle’s security clearance, claiming the FBI suspected he was the agent who appeared anonymously in a Project Veritas video and who allegedly leaked important investigative information.

“We received a referral from our Insider Threat Office that there had been an individual who had leaked information on an FBI criminal investigation,” Moore said.

She contended that “the individual leaked investigative information that compromised the case and had been interviewed apparently, like, behind a shield. And so that had opened up a leak case. It had come in as a referral.”

But when Moore was asked whether the bureau had reliable information that O’Boyle was indeed the agent who appeared in the video under a software mask, Moore refused to provide further information to the committee, telling investigators that "I can’t talk about that.”

She later said in a deposition that the FBI was actually not sure which agent had given the interview, according to the letter from Empower Oversight.

But Just the News reported that the FBI had in fact sent the Project Veritas video to Quantico for a voice analysis and “conclusively discovered” by early 2023 that the individual under a voice mask was not O’Boyle.

Nevertheless, the ranking Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, and on the Weaponization Committee, Delegate Stacey Plaskett, used Moore’s incorrect testimony to refer O’Boyle to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution over claims of lying to Congress and perjury.

Foster told the FBI on Wednesday that “at the time of the criminal referral, SecD already knew that SA O’Boyle was not the agent who appeared in the Project Veritas video. Yet, the FBI refused to correct the record with Congress on that fact.”

O’Boyle reveals “politicization” inside the bureau

Empower Oversight argued Wednesday that “the specifics of SA O’Boyle’s protected disclosures are essential to understanding the conduct SecD is using as the basis for revoking his security clearance.”

The lawyers argued that “it soon became clear that no one within FBI management or leadership took seriously his good-faith protected disclosures of FBI wrongdoing — much less investigated them, fixed the problems, or punished the wrongdoers” and so, in 2021, O’Boyle “began making protected disclosures to Congress concerning the politicization and weaponization of the FBI.”

His lawyers said O’Boyle disclosed in September 2021 up through his chain of command “his reasonable belief that the requirement that FBI employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with inadequate accommodations for religious objectors, violated the First Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

O’Boyle also made protected disclosures in November 2021 to Rep. Ron Estes’s office, including “his reasonable belief that the FBI had opened an inappropriate and politically motivated investigation into the investigative journalistic organization Project Veritas, and that DOJ had made false claims about the case in court.”

The Biden DOJ investigated Project Veritas over the group’s efforts to scrutinize Ashley Biden’s stolen diary, which they did not publish.

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and other groups wrote in 2023 “to urge the Court to affirm that the First Amendment protects a reporter’s right to receive and possess expressive materials on matters of public concern, even if those materials were unlawfully obtained by a third party.”

The Justice Department announced in February that “no additional criminal charges are forthcoming” in its investigation into the group. Project Veritas celebrated that “after years of threats, no charges will be filed” and said that “no American journalists should ever again be targeted for their work.”

O’Boyle disclosed to Rep. Jim Jordan’s office in March 2022 that “the FBI had issued what appeared to be a politically motivated suspension of the security clearance of an FBI employee who attended President Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally but did not enter the Capitol and left before it was declared an unlawful assembly.” Jordan referenced this in a May 2022 letter to Wray.

Trump issued pardons in January for hundreds of defendants charged and convicted in cases related to the riot at the Capitol.

O’Boyle also provided additional information to Jordan’s office in May 2022 “regarding the FBI’s school board threat tagging” because the FBI agent “reasonably believed the FBI was engaging in politically motivated law enforcement, wasting resources, and abusing the FBI’s authority.” Jordan referenced this in a May 2022 letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Attorney General Pam Bondi used a little-noticed footnote in January to rescind the controversial school board memo that had directed the Biden-era Justice Department and FBI to investigate alleged threats posed by outspoken parents. Bondi said the Trump DOJ will be scrutinizing the Biden DOJ’s “investigation of parents of school children who expressed sincere, good-faith concerns at local government meetings.”

O’Boyle also disclosed to Jordan’s office in May 2022 his belief that FBI headquarters “used the leak of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a rationale to aggressively track pro-life individuals on the pretext of potential threats to abortion clinics.”

Wray testified in August 2022 that the bureau had launched “domestic violent extremism investigations” into pro-abortion rights threats and attacks that increasingly targeted anti-abortion groups in the wake of the May 2022 leak of a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion overruling Roe v. Wade. Trump in January pardoned 23 pro-life activists who were convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act.

O’Boyle also submitted documents to Jordan’s office in May 2022 “disclosing his reasonable belief that the FBI had targeted an employee for expressing, on a supposedly anonymous employee survey, his belief that the FBI had become improperly politicized as evidenced by its handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, and the events of January 6, 2021.” Jordan referenced this in a June 2022 letter to Wray.

There is significant evidence demonstrating the DOJ’s and FBI’s politicized mishandling of the MidYear Exam investigation into Clinton’s illicit classified emails. And Republican congressional investigators and outside inquiries have repeatedly found a “double standard” by the DOJ and FBI when it came to investigating Clinton and Trump.

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” into the Trump campaign.

O’Boyle also made a protected disclosure in July 2022 to Jordan’s office alleging that the DOJ was engaging in “stat padding” related to domestic terrorism. Jordan referenced this in a July 2022 letter to Wray.

Wray had testified in August 2022 that “the number of FBI investigations of suspected DVEs has more than doubled since the spring of 2020.” The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security admitted in October 2022 that a “significant portion” of the massive rise in domestic terrorism investigations between 2020 and 2021 was related to the DOJ’s investigation into the Capitol riot.

Jordan wrote in a 2023 report that whistleblower disclosures showed that “the FBI has manipulated the manner in which it categorized January 6-related investigations to create a misleading narrative that domestic terrorism is organically surging around the country.”

“This smear campaign, disgusting as it is, is unsurprising,” O’Boyle said during congressional testimony in May 2023. “Despite our oath to uphold the Constitution, too many in the FBI aren’t willing to sacrifice for the hard right over the easy wrong. They see what becomes of whistleblowers; how the FBI destroys their careers, suspends them under false pretenses, and takes their security clearances and pay with no true options for real recourse or remedy. This is by design; it creates an Orwellian atmosphere that silences opposition and discussion.”

Foster wrote in his new letter to the FBI that “not only were SecD officials aware of SA O’Boyle’s congressional testimony and previous protected disclosures, it is also apparent that the revocation of his clearance was in reprisal for those protected disclosures.”

More whistleblowers ask Kash Patel’s FBI for help

Just the News learned that Empower Oversight sent another letter, this one in early March, to FBI general counsel Samuel Ramer, asking the bureau for help related to the improper treatment of O’Boyle, Marcus Allen, Stephen Friend, Zach Schofftsall, Monica Shillingburg, Michael Zummer – and four redacted clients.

“The actions taken against our clients were in reprisal for protected whistleblowing and/or improper targeting because of their political beliefs,” Empower Oversight wrote, adding, “While we appreciate your review of these cases to explore ways to amicably resolve and remedy the harms the FBI has inflicted on our clients, we are also willing to engage in other good faith efforts to reach the same goals.”

The lawyers for the whistleblowers added that “we request the opportunity to engage a representative of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group.”

Bondi announced the creation of a “Weaponization Working Group” in January with the goal of determining whether any actions by the DOJ or FBI appeared “to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”

Some of the FBI whistleblowers have asked to speak directly with Bondi’s new group to reveal further protected disclosures and to discuss “the targeting and reprisals they have suffered.”