Raskin criticizes DOJ settlements with FBI whistleblowers including China expert with info on Strzok

A top House Democrat accused the Trump Justice Department of “lawless abuse” for agreeing to settlements with FBI whistleblowers – including a China expert who wanted to share further information about working under disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok – while the non-profit representing the FBI agents accused the Democrat of throwing a “toddler’s temper tantrum.”

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a Tuesday letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, attacking the Trump DOJ for providing reinstatements or financial settlements to a number of FBI agents who had decried the politicization of the bureau during the Biden Administration and who had allegedly been retaliated against by the FBI, with their security clearances being pulled or being fired. 

Empower Oversight, the group representing many of these FBI whistleblowers, quickly pushed back by defending their clients and claiming Raskin was lying.

“You have now proceeded behind closed doors to order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pay millions of dollars to former FBI agents who were suspended, fired, and had their clearances revoked for criminal activity, major breaches of national security, or violations of the standards of conduct and professionalism required of law enforcement agents,” Raskin claimed to Blanche. “All of these handouts constitute an astounding and lawless abuse of government office and taxpayer dollars.”

Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, quickly responded to Raskin’s contentions.

“This letter is more a toddler’s temper tantrum than serious congressional oversight. It’s filled with shameless lies about our clients that would get him sued if he wasn’t protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate privilege,” he said.

“It is common practice for federal agencies to settle legal or administrative complaints against them, which (as Empower Oversight made public on March 19, 2025) virtually all of the whistleblowers had against the FBI at the time of the settlements," .Leavitt continued. "Empower Oversight been transparent at every step about its case for making these whistleblowers whole, with hundreds of pages documenting the flaws in FBI actions against these employees. 

"In fact, two of our clients who received settlements were FBI Security Division employees retaliated against for exposing the FBI’s use of the security clearance process for reprisal against other Empower Oversight clients – a wrong even the Biden-era FBI recognized when it reinstated our client Marcus Allen’s security clearance.”

FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted in August 2025 that “agreements have been reached with 10 FBI Whistleblowers (and counsel) to include a combination of backpay, security clearance, and reinstatement. We greatly appreciate @realDonaldTrump commitment to transparency and accountability. Thank you to @ChuckGrassley for working with us to make this happen.”

Empower Oversight founder Jason Foster tweeted in response:“@Kash_Patel supported these whistleblowers long ago, before anyone knew he might be Director one day. He took heat for it. So did they. It was weaponized to try to stop his confirmation. That didn't work,” . “With this post he announced the end of permanent Washington's resistance to getting this done. Broad agreements in principle became actual deals with ink from both sides on the final few cases in the following days. On behalf of our clients and everyone at @EMPOWR_us — thank you @FBIDirectorKash.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Inauguration Day 2026 calling for “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi followed up by announcing the creation of the “Weaponization Working Group” at the start of her tenure in February 2025, saying the group “will conduct a review of the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years… to identify instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”

Bondi specifically stated that the new working group “will examine… retaliatory targeting, and in some instances criminal prosecution, of legitimate whistleblowers.”

Raskin also said Tuesday: “First, the fired agents are ardent supporters and foot soldiers of President Trump. Second, they are all represented by Empower Oversight, an organization founded and run by former staffers to Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to defend himself and the whistleblowers.

“That letter made disgraceful and wrongful accusations regarding my helping many FBI whistleblowers. For the entirety of this Congress, I’ve been open and public about my efforts to help them,” Grassley said, adding that “I’ve seen a lot in my time serving the people of Iowa, but this attack on my office and whistleblowers is beyond the pale.”

Grassley added that “The Trump Justice Department and FBI should get credit for righting the wrongs against these additional whistleblowers. And what the Democrats did with this letter may cause tremendous damage to whistleblower reputations for getting the facts wrong.”

Empower Oversight added in their own Tuesday letter that “another key error in Raskin’s letter is that while some of our clients expressed strong conservative views, several did not share those views and did not support President Trump at all. In fact, clients of diverse political viewpoints spoke out against the abuses of the security clearance process that were perpetrated against our other clients. Those security clearance whistleblowers suffered reprisal as a result.”

Raskin also took aim at one of the FBI whistleblowers – “Agent 1” – and claimed that this former FBI agent “had his clearance suspended because he was communicating classified information to reporters about Chinese intelligence activities. He resigned after his clearance was suspended and did not file a claim against DOJ or FBI. Nonetheless, five years after his initial suspension, your office ordered the FBI to restore his security clearance and awarded him $15,000. Why? On what basis?”

Empower Oversight responded that, “Agent 1 did not communicate any classified information. The FBI review referred to by Rep. Raskin was a hurried set of allegations by FBI Security Division that were debunked when Agent 1 was finally given an opportunity to respond.”

“He was targeted because of his political beliefs and hesitancy to take the COVID-19 vaccine,” Empower Oversight added. “In fact, contrary to what Rep. Raskin suggests, Agent 1’s resignation is an example of the fundamental unfairness of the FBI’s suspension of security clearances.”

This yet unnamed FBI agent, who said last year that he wanted to share information on Strzok, served in the bureau’s Counterintelligence Division for 13 years, his lawyers said, and he “primarily focused on China and was active in collaborating with other China experts” in the nation’s capital.

Despite the redactions, it appears from the context of Empower Oversight’s letter that part of the FBI agent’s grievance with the bureau relates to the FBI allegedly improperly suspending his security clearance following the publishing of former Axios reporter Bethany Allen’s December 2020 story revealing that Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell had been targeted by and had a relationship with Christine Fang.

Swalwell recently resigned from Congress under sexual misconduct allegations.

The Chinese national Fang, who was active in the Bay Area and elsewhere in the United States for years as she built connections and relationships with numerous politicians including Swalwell, is believed to have been working at the direction of China’s main civilian spy agency — the Ministry of State Security.

Lawyers for the FBI agent stressed that he did not provide sensitive information or case information on Swalwell to the reporter, but he was indefinitely suspended without pay anyway.

“[REDACTED] met various experts on China at functions in the Washington, DC area. Through that collaboration, he met a reporter. He initially reported his contact with the reporter to his supervisor. His supervisor told him that he did not need to report the contact in writing. At first, he used his FBI email account to communicate with her, so his communications were transparent to the FBI. He began using his personal email account as the relationship became more social,” Empower Oversight wrote last year. 

“Unfortunately, the same reporter later broke the story about the FBI investigating Congressman Eric Swalwell. Although [REDACTED] did not provide any sensitive FBI information, let alone any Swalwell case information, to the reporter, his security clearance was suspended, resulting in his immediate, indefinite suspension without pay.”

The story on Swalwell in 2020 added that “amid a widening counterintelligence probe, federal investigators became so alarmed by Fang's behavior and activities that around 2015 they alerted Swalwell to their concerns – giving him what is known as a defensive briefing.” The defensive briefing alerted Swalwell to Fang’s Chinese intelligence links.

“Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn’t seen in nearly six years — to the FBI,” Swalwell’s office said back in 2020. “To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story.”

Lawyers for the unnamed FBI agent said in March 2025 that “another possible factor” in their client’s suspension “was that for years he challenged multiple [Counterintelligence Division] supervisors/executives on their inconsistent handling of investigations and intelligence reporting regarding foreign political interference (e.g., defense briefings to Democrats, but investigations and prosecutions of Republicans).”

Republicans have long pointed to a double standard in how FBI defensive briefings were used in high-profile cases involving political figures – a defensive briefing given to then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016 was actually a pretextual briefing which the FBI exploited to advance its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign, whereas defensive briefings given to Swalwell and Feinstein about their close ties to suspected Chinese agents effectively ended the FBI’s criminal or counterintelligence investigations.

House Intelligence Committee Republicans responded to the Swalwell and Fang revelations in 2020 by calling upon then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another California Democrat, to remove Swalwell from the sensitive congressional committee, saying that “his close interactions with Chinese intelligence services, however unintentional they may be, are an unacceptable national security risk.”

Since-fired FBI Director James Comey’s briefing of Trump on the debunked and anti-Trump Steele Dossier in January 2017 was also used to advance the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry, according to Horowitz in 2019.

The meeting between Trump, Comey, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and then-NSA Director Mike Rogers occurred on Jan. 6, 2017, and was leaked to the press. Its main topic was supposed to be the intelligence community assessment on Russian meddling.

Horowitz’s 2019 report on Comey’s mishandling of his memos showed Comey’s one-on-one with Trump was treated as a chance to gather Trump-Russia investigation information, and the first so-called “Comey Memo” was written that day.

Empower Oversight said last year that their client “seeks reinstatement of his security clearance to enable potential re-employment with the FBI given its need for his significant experience and expertise within the FBI Counterintelligence Division on issues related to China.”

The lawyers said the FBI agent “would also like to make additional protected disclosures to the Weaponization Working Group about various abuses he observed, including while working under Peter Strzok” – who played a key role in the FBI’s Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 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.” 

Durham 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.”

Raskin on Tuesday also described FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle as someone who “disclosed classified information regarding a criminal investigation into Project Veritas, taking screenshots of his computer and sending them to third parties.”

“However, when you entered into office, the DOJ reinstated the agent and agreed to a lump sum settlement payment to him of more than $100,000 and back pay of nearly $500,000, for his spurious causes of action that had already been rejected for various reasons in both administrative and judicial proceedings,” Raskin claimed to Blanche. “Why? On what basis?”

“O’Boyle did not disclose any classified information. He made unclassified protected disclosures to members of Congress and discussed unclassified FBI matters with active FBI employees,” Empower Oversight said when pushing back. “Considering Project Veritas is a domestic group that was being investigated for buying a stolen diary belonging to President Biden’s daughter, it is unlikely that there was any classified national security information in that case. The revocation of his clearance was pending as were employment claims when the settlement agreement was reached.”

Just the News last year did an extensive report on O’Boyle, whose lawyers said he 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.

House Democrats have attacked whistleblowers before, during and after their 2023 congressional hearing – including attempting to accuse O’Boyle of lying to Congress, which Just the News previously debunked.

“For Congress to perform its Constitutional duty of oversight of the Executive Branch, it must have firsthand, unvarnished information about how federal agencies are operating,” Leavitt testified during that hearing. “But why would future whistleblowers bring their disclosures to Congress if they think they might be treated the way some on this Committee have treated these whistleblowers? Attacking whistleblowers hurts this Committee and others like it, the House of Representatives as an institution, and Congress as a whole.”

It was also announced last year that two IRS whistleblowers (and Empower Oversight clients) 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 Trump-led Treasury Department.