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'A Weaponized FBI: It’s Real, Whistleblowers Testify, Boasting Scars to
Prove It'

<https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/02/weaponized-fbi-its-real-whistleblowers-testify-boasting-scars/>

'Democrats have cast the Trump administration’s ouster of eight senior
FBI leaders as a “purge” and act of “retribution” from a weaponized Justice Department, some likening it to President Nixon’s “Saturday
Night Massacre.”

But former colleagues of the terminated “G-men” say this narrative is backward. FBI officials, past and present, have marshaled significant
evidence via whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that
several terminated leaders routinely used their offices for partisan
purposes.

These include allegations that at least two of the fired officials,
Jeffrey Veltri and Dena Perkins, manipulated the security clearance
review process to personally and professionally punish conservatives,
COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, and Jan. 6 whistleblowers who reported
suspected bureau malfeasance, and retaliated against those who came to
the whistleblowers’ defense.

A third, Timothy Dunham, is also alleged to have improperly suspended
security clearances.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) read
numerous accounts of alleged misconduct perpetrated by these and other officials into the record this morning as the committee considered the nomination of Kash Patel for FBI Director.

One subordinate of the three terminated individuals, a former
supervisory special agent in the Security Division, “SecD,” from which Veltri and Perkins hailed, and whom Dunham oversaw, told the committee:

I witnessed abuses committed against multiple employees by FBI senior
leaders, particularly by Jeff Veltri and Dena Perkins. I also saw SecD retaliate against five of its own employees for protesting these
unlawful practices. Because I spoke out against these abuses, Perkins
and Timothy Dunham suspended my security clearance, costing me my job
and continuing employment, totaling approximately $700,000 in lost wages
and retirement benefits.

Another former FBI official, Marcus Allen, told the committee that
Veltri and Perkins “caused the suspension of my security clearance
because I questioned whether the FBI Director was truthful to Congress
and whether the FBI was obeying the law and Constitution in the January
6, 2021 investigations.” What followed left “financial and emotional
damage to me and my family will never be completely restored.”

A third, Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, who has been indefinitely
suspended without pay for well over two years in alleged retaliation for whistleblowing, told the committee that Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, “and
other leadership up to Christopher Wray, are responsible for what
happened to me and my family.”

“Ensuring that they no longer work at the FBI is not retribution; it’s responsible leadership.”

Patel has been nominated to replace Wray, who came under fire from
Republicans who believed the bureau targeted Trump supporters, parents, pro-life activists, and others. The Republican allegations informed
President Trump’s first-day executive order, “Ending the Weaponization
of the Federal Government,” and his Jan. 31 directive terminating eight high-level figures – including those overseeing branches from counterterrorism to criminal investigations and the heads of the
bureau’s Miami and Washington field offices. The memo also called for a review of the work of all FBI personnel pertaining to Jan. 6, numbering
5,000 in all, for misconduct.

While no findings have been issued regarding that larger probe, the Jan.
31 memo, drafted by Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Emil Bove, suggests a legitimate rationale for terminating the FBI leaders. It
notes that the bureau and they themselves were complicit in malfeasance pertaining to the Jan. 6 investigation, the weaponization of security clearances, and resisting Justice Department directives. Consequently,
Bove wrote, the DOJ did not trust them “to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”

The Justice Department did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’
inquiries in connection with this story, and RCI was unable to reach
Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, or the five other terminated officials.

Democrats have assailed the firings. A letter signed by all 10 Senate
Judiciary Committee Democrats stated, “Our alarm has only grown in the
past two weeks as this purge of experienced career prosecutors and
agents has expanded … We can only assume these decisions are intended to prevent the Department from investigating national security and public corruption, while also serving as political retribution against the President’s perceived enemies and stoking fear among the dedicated and talented workforce in our nation’s premier law enforcement agency.”

Sen. Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, added: “These are people who have served our country,
protected Americans and put criminals behind bars. Now they have been
pushed out simply for doing their jobs.”

A central complaint of the whistleblowers is that, consistent with the
Bove memo, FBI officials weaponized security clearances. Specifically,
they allege that the bureau’s Security Division has baselessly suspended and/or revoked security clearances in retaliation against those who have
made protected disclosures. As maintaining a security clearance is an
essential condition of employment, the suspension of one’s clearance typically triggers an indefinite employment suspension without pay. The suspended are also barred from seeking outside employment or accepting
gifts. The associated probes can last months and even years, with the
targeted waiting first for their cases to be fully investigated and adjudicated, and then sometimes waiting still longer during an appeals
process.

The process can be so onerous that Justice Department Inspector General
Michael Horowitz has noted that it can be leveraged to encourage
disfavored employees to resign rather than fight a lengthy and costly
battle.

While the FBI has denied claims that the Security Division has abused
this power in recent years, Horowitz detailed misconduct in testimony
before the House Judiciary Committee last September. His team had seen
evidence indicating that the division had used the investigation and adjudication process to punish whistleblowers.



One whose case Horowitz highlighted involved Marcus Allen, a decorated
Marine Corps veteran and award-winning FBI Staff Operations Specialist.
Veltri and Perkins allegedly played an integral role in targeting him.

Allen’s duties included supporting the Charlotte, N.C. field office’s
Joint Terrorism Task Force in ongoing investigations and intelligence
requests pertaining to Jan. 6. This included gathering and sharing
relevant open-source information. In September 2021, Allen reported to
his supervisors that various news outlets, including
RealClearInvestigations, RealClearPolitics, and the New York Times, had reported that confidential FBI informants were present at the Capitol on
Jan. 6, 2021, and a “significant counter-story” had formed.

Allen told his colleagues, “There is a good possibility the DC elements
of our organization are not being forthright about the events of the day
or the influence of government assets.” Minutes later, he forwarded his colleagues an email with a link to a video contrasting the Times’ report
with then-FBI Director Wray’s testimony in March 2021 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting Wray may not have provided the whole
truth about the FBI’s links to Jan. 6.

Suspended Without Pay 27 Months
This would set off a chain of events that would leave Allen suspended
and without pay for 27 months – forced, along with his wife, to take
early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet.

Charlotte field office personnel forwarded Allen’s emails to the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, which passed them to Veltri – then-head of
the Security Division section responsible for all personnel
investigations.

Rather than first passing concerns to the division’s referral evaluation unit, as is customary, Veltri instigated an immediate investigation on
the grounds of Allen’s potential lack of allegiance to the U.S. A
successor would call this an “abortion of the process.”

Days later, Veltri received an email from the Charlotte field office,
which expressed “added concerns” regarding Allen. Delivered on behalf of that office’s head, then-Special Agent in Charge Robert Wells, one of
the eight FBI officials the Trump administration would terminate, it
noted that Allen was one of two employees not to attest to his COVID-19 vaccination status, even though President Biden had made vaccination
mandatory for all federal employees.

Veltri’s then-Assistant Section Chief Perkins used the email as
justification to instruct the FBI’s Insider Threat Office to open an assessment into Allen.

That office would review Allen’s communications and conclude he harbored “hostile views towards the FBI and current administration.” To justify
this characterization, it stated that Allen had sent “links from
questionable sources,” including RealClearPolitics. It surmised Allen
was trafficking in “extremist propaganda” and that he “may pose an insider threat to the FBI.”

Yet a subsequent probe of Allen’s communications by the FBI would find
“no information validating” the basis for an investigation into Allen. Interviews with four Charlotte field office officials indicated they
lacked evidence that he was disloyal, sympathized with Jan. 6 rioters,
or was otherwise ill-equipped to handle his duties.

Despite the misgivings of the investigator and his supervisors on the
case, IG Horowitz found that security division management – which
included Veltri and Perkins – insisted that Allen’s security clearance
be suspended pending investigation.

A January 2022 memorandum did just that, claiming on the basis of his
emails and refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate that Allen
“promoted unreliable information which indicates support for the events
of January 6th” and “espoused conspiratorial views.”

According to the D.C.-based watchdog group that helped represent Allen,
Empower Oversight, the agent was in limbo for 27 months while his case
was investigated, adjudicated, and appealed.

When interviewed by the security division in connection with his case –
some four months after his clearance and pay had been suspended – Allen,
a self-described “faithful Catholic,” indicated that “the Holy Spirit compelled him” to make the disclosure that would land him in hot water.

Veltri would allegedly deride Allen for that remark, suggesting,
according to another division official represented by Empower Oversight,
that he “was delusional for referring to his religious belief … for disclosing wrongdoing.”

Even though, as his counsel has detailed, all line-level employees who
reviewed the Allen case believed he should retain his clearance, the
bureau revoked his clearance under pressure from management, purportedly including Veltri.

Three individuals within the division responsible for processing Allen’s
case would be reassigned in retaliation for disclosing misconduct in the division’s targeting of him.

It was not until May 2024 – after Horowitz’s office had initiated a reprisal investigation – that Allen reached a settlement with the
Justice Department, agreeing to resign in exchange for full back pay and reinstatement of his security clearance.

Horowitz’s office would issue a May 2024 memorandum providing employees claiming reprisal additional means to defend themselves against
indefinite unpaid suspension in light of Allen’s tribulations.

The Case of Garret O’Boyle
In emotional testimony before Congress last fall, Allen lamented that
Special Agent Garret O’Boyle was being subjected to a similarly tortuous process.

O’Boyle, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, alleges that he
was targeted by Perkins on baseless grounds – and has been suspended
without pay for nearly two-and-a-half years.

Empower Oversight, which also serves as his counsel alongside several
Security Division whistleblowers, has detailed that in late 2021 and
early 2022, O’Boyle began making a series of protected disclosures,
first internally regarding FBI COVID-19 policies that he believed were unconstitutional and unlawful, and then to Congress concerning the politicization of the FBI.

Among the congressional disclosures was his view that the bureau may
have opened a politically motivated criminal investigation into
conservative muckraker Project Veritas – about which the Justice
Department had made false claims in court.

In May 2022, Project Veritas published an interview with a masked FBI
official making similar claims.

After applying for and being accepted to a new assignment with a start
date of September 2022, in August, O’Boyle sold his Kansas home and
prepared to move to Virginia with his three children and his wife, who
was eight months pregnant. On the first day, upon arriving at his new
post, O’Boyle was accused of leaking information to the press and had
his security clearance suspended. He and his family were effectively
rendered homeless, since he had not closed on his new home, and was left without an income.

The Security Division investigator on O’Boyle’s case had previously told the then-Acting Section Chief Perkins that there was no evidence O’Boyle
had leaked anything to the media. Rather, he had disclosed to his
superiors that he believed O’Boyle may have made protected disclosures
to Congress. Yet, as Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt told
the House Judiciary Committee last fall, Perkins “responded that she had already briefed the FBI’s 7th floor that SA O’Boyle was a media leaker,
and did not want to correct this misunderstanding.”

Evidence suggests that Veltri and Perkins discussed O’Boyle’s transfer
in advance of his move, with whistleblowers inferring that a scheme was
hatched to ensnare him.

Shortly after the suspension, Veltri would be made head of the FBI’s
Miami field office, its fifth-largest. He would lead the investigation
into the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
At the time, earlier reports resurfaced that Veltri had demonstrated an anti-Trump bias, claims the FBI batted down.

The bureau revoked O’Boyle’s security clearance in July 2024 after it became aware he had made protected disclosures to the DOJ inspector
general and in advance of coming hearings where O’Boyle’s plight was
likely to be exposed.

That month, O’Boyle’s legal team, which also includes the American
Center for Law & Justice and Binnall Law Group, filed a “request for reconsideration” of the revocation. That entitles O’Boyle to review the evidence used to justify the revocation. O’Boyle’s team did not receive such information until six months later, on Jan. 30, 2025. The receipt
of that information triggers a 30-day period with which to prepare and
submit his appeal.

“The crazy Kafkaesque system puts deadlines on the employee, but the FBI
has an infinity whenever it wants – zero deadlines on its responses,”
Jason Foster, Empower Oversight’s Founder and Chairman, told RCI.

Perkins reportedly pushed an unnamed adjudicator who had recommended
ending O’Boyle’s suspension out of his job .

According to this adjudicator’s disclosure to Congress, “Perkins has
moved several other employees who report to her for recommending
decisions contrary to her interests [and] bases many of her decisions on favoritism.”

She “is considered corrupt and dishonest by FBI employees,” he said.

These claims dovetail with those of a former supervisory special agent
at the Security Division — the supervisor whose testimony Chairman
Grassley read into the record this morning. The agent, a Democrat, is
also represented by Empower Oversight.

In a July 2024 letter summarizing some of the unnamed whistleblower’s
claims, Leavitt said his client had observed that:

The outcomes of clearance investigations and adjudications were often pre-determined by the Division’s acting Deputy Assistant Director
[Veltri] and the acting Section Chief [Perkins] responsible for security clearance investigations and adjudications, who often overruled line
staff and even dictated the wording of documents in the clearance
process.

In a related letter to Horowitz and the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI official of nearly 20 years
disclosed, through Empower, that during his time as a Security Division investigator under the leadership of Veltri and Perkins, it was common
for investigators to ask “whether employees under investigation had
vocalized support for former President Donald Trump or whether they had vocalized objection to the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Veltri and Perkins allegedly would “ask in staff meetings whether
employees whose clearances were under investigation had received the vaccine.”

The supervisory special agent asserted that the duo’s perspective “was
that if an FBI employee fit a certain profile as a political
conservative, they were viewed as security concerns and unworthy to work
at the FBI.”

In April 2022, investigators overseen by Veltri and Perkins issued a questionnaire reflecting this view in connecting with a probe of a
12-year FBI veteran whose security clearance had been suspended one
month prior.

Under penalty of potential disciplinary action, investigators asked
co-workers of the suspended employee whether he had vocalized “support
for President Trump,” “objection to COVID-19 vaccination,” or “intent to
attend 01/06/2021” – a reference to the Capitol riot.

The suspension came some 15 months after the agent had self-reported,
following the events of Jan. 6, that while on personal leave, he had
peacefully observed activities among crowds near the Capitol. After
making disclosures to Congress regarding alleged politicization and
security clearance process abuses in his case and others, he would have
his security clearance revoked. After appealing, with the process
dragging on, the agent retired.

As for the longtime supervisory special agent who had reported on Veltri
and Perkins’ misconduct, he too had his security clearance suspended.
Foster told RCI that the individual who signed off on the agent’s
suspension was Timothy Dunham.

Another unnamed Empower client, Foster told RCI, claims that Dunham
threatened to suspend the individual’s security clearance as a means of retaliation and delayed reinstating the security clearance of another
employee for over a year.

Dunham served as the executive assistant director of the FBI’s human resources branch – under which the Security Division sits – from the
summer of 2023 until his termination, pursuant to the Bove memorandum.

These terminations may be only the beginning of efforts to remedy
alleged malfeasance pertaining to whistleblowers. Attorney General Pam
Bondi, in establishing the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working
Group shortly after her confirmation, indicated that one of its focuses
will be examining “the retaliatory targeting, and in some instances
criminal prosecution, of legitimate whistleblowers

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