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The FBI asked an employee if he supported Trump, vaccines, and gun rights, and revoked his security clearance when they didn’t like his answers.
From Just the News. FBI officials conducting a top-secret security clearance review for a longtime employee asked witnesses whether that employee was known to support former President Donald Trump, if he had expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine or had attended a Second Amendment rally, according to internal memos that prompted a complaint to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog alleging political bias inside the bureau.
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The employee’s security clearance was revoked months after the interviews, which confirmed his support for Trump and gun rights and his concerns about the COVID vaccine, according to the documents obtained by Just the News.
The memos show that agents for the FBI’s Security Division asked at least three witnesses in spring 2022 whether the employee, whose name and job title was redacted from the memos, had been known to “vocalize support for President Trump” or “vocalize objections to Covid-19 vaccination.” Agents ascertained from at least one witness that the worker, in fact, had declined to get the coronavirus inoculation. …
The agents also asked witnesses whether the FBI worker had “attended the Richmond Lobby Day event” in January 2021, a rally for supporters of the Second Amendment in Virginia. The agents’ notes referred to the colleague they were vetting as a “gun nut” but who in engaged in “no promotion of violence.” …
FBI officials declined comment about why a worker’s support for Trump and the Second Amendment or his hesitancy to get the COVID-19 vaccine had relevance to his security clearance. …
In a letter to the DOJ inspector general, the FBI employee’s lawyer, Tristan Leavitt, revealed his client made made protected whistleblower disclosures to both Congress and the DOJ about the politicization of the security clearance process, which he alleged he was put through simply because he self-reported having taken a vacation day to go to Washington D.C. for the Jan. 6, 2021 rally. …
“Instead of limiting its investigation to legitimate issues, SecD (Security Division) acted as if support for President Trump, objecting to COVID-19 vaccinations, or lawfully attending a protest was the equivalent of being a member of Al Qaeda or the Chinese Communist Party,” Leavitt wrote to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in a letter Monday asking for an investigation.
“The FBl’s intentions are made clear by the questions it chose to put in black and white on a government document,” added Leavitt, whose group has represented … several FBI agents and analysts who claim their security clearances were suspended or revoked because of their political views. …
If the inspector general opens an inquiry, it could help the public and Congress determine whether the FBI’s questions about Trump were more widespread than the employee who went to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, or whether other questions about political preferences and medical treatments are asked during traditional security clearance reviews.
two sources told Just the News that there is evidence that information was gathered during FBI security clearance reviews on other employees’ political views, suggesting the practice was not isolated. …
By the time the FBI was asking about the worker’s vaccine views in April 2022, the U.S Supreme Court had three months earlier already struck down vaccine mandates in the corporate workplace and the U.S. District Court for Southern Texas had issued an injunction against a federal employee vaccine mandate. …
Leavitt wrote the IG that he believed the FBI’s conduct in his client’s security clearance review violated the Constitution and Supreme Court cases involving employment law and the First Amendment. …
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(Excerpt from Just the News. Photo Credit: urbazon/Getty Images Signature)