The Justice Department’s top watchdog and a successful FBI whistleblower took questions Wednesday from a House panel investigating the weaponization of government.
Key witnesses testified before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government, noting how such weaponization applies to larger problems within the FBI.
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a May memo that the FBI failed to comply with whistleblower protections in suspending the security clearance of a bureau employee, Marcus Allen.
Allen, a former FBI staff operations specialist, raised questions about the official narrative regarding whether the bureau had confidential informants on the scene of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Allen also testified before the House’s government weaponization subcommittee in May 2023.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the House panel that his office is investigating the role of FBI informants at the Capital riot, but may not issue a report until after the next president is sworn in Jan. 20
The FBI suspended Allen’s security clearance in early 2022 and restored it this past June. At that point, he dropped his complaint to Horowitz’s Office of Inspector General.
Here are four takeaways from the hearing Wednesday.
Allen testified that he wasn’t able to work during his unpaid leave and had to dig into retirement savings.
“The battle for truth and justice will cost you, but the arduous good is worth it,” Allen said. “No [previous] FBI whistleblower has ever had his clearance restored as I did.”
He said he has never regretted his decision to be a whistleblower and is “grateful for the experience.”
“My family and I persevered due to our strengthened faith, God’s grace, and the sacraments,” Allen said.
Allen said he learned that Jeffrey Veltri, now the FBI’s special agent in charge in Miami, ridiculed Allen’s Christian faith as one of his supervisors.
Veltri recently made news for leading the FBI’s investigation in Florida into the second assassination attempt on Trump.
As Allen spoke, his voice cracked and he became visibly emotional.
“If you do not worship God, then you will worship something else. You can serve God or you can serve mammon, but you can’t serve both,” the former FBI employee testified, paraphrasing Scripture. “This has been a purification. When we lost material items, we gained important things. We have stored up for ourselves treasures in heaven. What we have gained spiritually far outweighs what we have lost materially.”
Allen cited two early presidents, John Adams and James Madison,........