Blaze News original: FBI agents: True servants of justice — or bullies 'just following orders'?

With the likely confirmation of Kash Patel as the new director, a welcome change in culture at the Federal Bureau of Investigation seems almost inevitable. However, the hiring process at the agency is selective and the turnover rate is low. So while new faces will take over as top brass, the vast majority of the rank-and-file membership will remain the same.

To get a better understanding of the nearly 13,000 everyday agents who compose about a third of the FBI workforce, Blaze News spoke with two former everyday agents who have since blown the whistle on alleged misconduct at the FBI: former Special Agent Steve Friend and suspended Special Agent Garret O'Boyle.

According to Friend and O'Boyle, the lion's share of FBI rank-and-file agents are hardly as patriotic or as dedicated to their mission as many Americans have been led to believe.

The FBI and Trump's first term: Erosion of trust

When the leaders of some of the most powerful government agencies in the world opened Crossfire Hurricane, an investigation into then-candidate Donald Trump, in 2016, many high-profile figures attempted to make a distinction between some bad actors at the tops of these agencies and the supposedly devoted rank-and-file membership.

• At a November 2016 hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) claimed that 79% of Secret Service employees at the time didn't "believe that senior leaders act honestly and with integrity."
• In May 2017, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed President Donald Trump, then early in his first term, had fired FBI Director James Comey in part because the "rank-and-file" agents no longer trusted him.
• At a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the FBI "the finest group of professionals and public servants I could hope to work for." He continued: "Our people are very mission-focused. They're accustomed to the fact that we do some of the hardest things there are to do for a living."

However, the investigation into the wildly specious claim that Trump had somehow colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election caused a major rupture in the trust the American people had for federal law enforcement. The investigation was led by special counsel Robert Mueller — himself a former FBI director — who staffed his team with rabid Trump-haters, including Andrew Weissmann of the Department of Justice Criminal Division and Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two FBI officials who carried on an adulterous affair before and during the investigation.

'Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.'

Strzok and Page exchanged thousands of damning texts on their agency-issued devices, promising to "stop" Trump from being elected in 2016 and to implement an "insurance policy" on the off chance that he was inaugurated.

They also disparaged Trump voters as "ignorant hillbillies." "Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support," Strzok once wrote.

The impact of their anti-Trump animus extended beyond just extramarital flirtations. Not only did Strzok edit Comey's statement about Hillary Clinton's email scandal in 2016 to claim she had been "extremely careless" rather than "grossly negligent," Strzok also conducted the fateful interview with former national security adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017 that turned Flynn's world upside down.

Flynn, a retired Army general, was fired and eventually charged with lying to the FBI during the Strzok interview. He pled guilty, though his sentencing was repeatedly delayed until 2020, when Trump pardoned him.

'Tremendous power': The FBI and January 6

The public perception of the FBI tanked even further after Trump left office after his first term, mainly on account of the unprecedented raid on Mar-a-Lago and the ruthless investigations into the melee at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

News reports in recent days confirm that perhaps as many as 6,000 FBI employees were placed on January 6 investigations between 2021 and 2024.

A class-action lawsuit against the Trump DOJ has also since been filed by nine FBI employees. Not only does the lawsuit imply some fear of public exposure for J6-related work, but it also makes plain the ardent anti-Trump political bias of the plaintiffs, who accuse the department of attempting to retaliate against them for investigating and prosecuting the "crimes and abuses of power by Donald Trump, or by those acting at his behest."

'There certainly are some true believers who ... were very eager to inflict as much damage on J6ers as they could.'

Jan. 6 does indeed appear to have been an inflection point for the agency. According to former Special Agent Steve Friend and suspended Special Agent Garret O'Boyle, the FBI altered protocols following the incident to expand the size and scope of the investigation.

Friend explained to Blaze News that standard procedures meant January 6 should have been treated as "one case in Washington," no matter how many people were involved. "But they didn't do that," he said. "They instead told everyone to open a separate case for every single person ... [and] investigate it where they live."

Friend and O'Boyle, who host a podcast together, also agreed that "domestic terrorism" provided the pretense for investigating J6 so extensively.

"The people that have come in in the last few years, the brand-new agents, they're all being put specifically only on January 6," Friend said. "And they're being told in the training at the academy that white supremacy is our biggest threat."

"The vast majority of new agents were being assigned to the domestic terrorism squads, and the vast majority of work that was happening on those squads was January 6-related," O'Boyle added.

Because the FBI chose to open a new case for each J6 defendant and then investigate these in their respective home states, the number of "domestic terrorism" cases in field offices across the country skyrocketed, assuring those in charge that they were doing important work, Friend said.

"So they all hit their metrics, all hit their quarters. And then the president, the AG, and the director can get up there, show a map, and say, 'Look at this huge spike in domestic terrorist cases that we have around the country.'"

When asked whether the rank-and-file agents agreed with the importance of targeting J6 defendants, Friend and O'Boyle indicated that feelings were mixed.

"So there's a lot of true believers amongst the new agents," Friend said, as well as "a lot of people that are just following orders."

In an entirely separate interview with Blaze News, O'Boyle used nearly identical language about "true believers" and "following orders."

"I think there certainly are some true believers who ... were very eager to inflict as much damage on J6ers as they could," O'Boyle told Blaze News. "But by and large, I really think it's just people who are content with following orders and not taking a stand for what they know is right and what they know is true."

The possible ramifications of "just following orders" are not lost on either new FBI recruits or career agents. Both Friend and O'Boyle explained to Blaze News that during their respective training days at Quantico — Friend in June 2014, O'Boyle in July 2018 — they and their classmates took a field trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to appreciate more fully the deadly results that can come from "just following orders."

"They teach you that Auschwitz didn't happen on day one. It happened a little bit at a time because the police just follow orders," Friend recalled. "You are never to just follow orders if you believe that you're being ordered to do something that is unethical, immoral, out of step with your oath of office, unconstitutional, [or] unlawful."

O'Boyle indicated to Blaze News that the trip was the most "sobering" and "important" day of training because it hammered home the "tremendous power and tremendous trust" given to armed law enforcement officers such as FBI agents.

"And what are you going to do with it?"

In light of the explicit warnings against "just following orders," after Friend came forward with his allegations of misconduct at the bureau regarding J6 investigations, he felt betrayed by fellow agents who chose their careers and steady paychecks over morals and duty.

"I had conversations with people when I was about to make my disclosure ... and they were like, 'We agree with what you're doing here, but we don't want to risk our jobs on it,'" he said.

"And that, to me, is an even worse offense than the communists who think they're doing the Lord's work. Because at least they have principles. At least they think that they're going after the terrorists that are out there. They might be that deluded, but at least it's principles-based.

"It's the people that just follow orders that are the worst."

O'Boyle believes that J6 is a kind of poisonous tree at the FBI that bore insidious fruit, resulting in other apparently unconstitutional investigations, including into Christians praying outside abortion clinics, parents demanding answers at school board meetings, and those exercising their free speech rights in a distasteful but otherwise entirely legal manner.

"[In] the last five years or so, especially even going back to Russiagate, the FBI has, by and large, forsaken that field trip [to the Holocaust Museum] and forsaken that oath to the Constitution," he said.

The FBI did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

'Repulsive': The FBI, Steve Baker, and Blaze News

For Blaze News, the January 6 investigations were not simply a major story to cover. They became personal when our investigative reporter Steve Baker was swept up in them and, after years of threats and insinuations, eventually charged with four misdemeanors even though he had merely entered the Capitol that day to document the incident as a member of the free press. He was an independent journalist and not working for Blaze News at the time.

'They knew that each and every action taken would be amplified on social media and in the press.'

According to Baker, the special agent assigned to his case, Craig Noyes, acted in a "professional" manner during many of their in-person interactions and accommodated Baker's schedule when planning for interviews, even as the so-called statement of facts with Noyes' signature on it lied or grossly misrepresented Baker's actions related to J6.

Screenshot of FBI statement of facts

For instance, shortly after leaving the Capitol, Baker grabbed an adult beverage and sat down to film a podcast episode about the day's events with a colleague who walked about the Capitol grounds but never entered the building. During their conversation, Baker made several joking remarks, including that he regretted not stealing a laptop belonging to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) when he had the chance. "God knows what I could've found on their computers if I'd done that!" he chuckled.

Noyes and others at the FBI apparently didn't laugh along. Instead, they claimed such statements revealed that Baker saw himself as part of the riotous "mob."

Still, in light of the brutal treatment so many January 6 defendants received in the past few years, Baker considers himself lucky. Baker said he was never swatted, de-banked, placed on a terror watch list, forced to abide by travel restrictions, including to and from D.C., or had his social media accounts frozen.

"Why was I excluded from these actions when so many others were subjected to those and so many other punitive actions? I believe it directly correlates to the media attention I was able to stir up in the earliest days of their investigation in my case," Baker told Blaze News. "They knew that each and every action taken would be amplified on social media and in the press."

Screenshot of FBI statement of facts

Because Baker was never sentenced for the J6 charges, he was ineligible for the pardons and commutations Trump issued on his first day back in office. However, within days, the Trump DOJ filed to have Baker's case dismissed, and Judge Christopher Cooper, who had presided over several of Baker's hearings, soon signed off on the dismissal.

Baker told Blaze News that shortly after receiving word that his legal "nightmare" was over, he sent a text message to Special Agent Noyes, asking him to have a "beer meet-up" like they'd apparently previously planned. "Hahaha, appreciate the offer but I'll pass for now," came the reply, he said.

O'Boyle was less charitable in his characterization of Noyes, who was in charge of multiple J6 investigations, not just Baker's. "He is a disgrace to anyone who's ever worn the badge. He lives comfortably in a $800k 3600 sq ft house and yet everything about him is repulsive and not worth the slightest bit of envy," O'Boyle posted to X hours after Trump issued the J6 pardons.

Noyes did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

'Compromised moral character': The FBI and career advancement

Aside from J6, another major problem at the FBI, Friend and O'Boyle suggested to Blaze News, is the process of advancement, which they say encourages less experienced but more ambitious personnel to contrive ways to embellish their resumes.

In most cases, a new recruit joins the bureau between ages 23 and 37 and is forced into retirement after 20 years or at age 57, giving agents a narrow time frame in which to climb the ladder. One key to advancing quickly, Blaze News learned, seems to be to take credit for the work others have done.

Friend said that during his time working on Indian reservations in Iowa, new FBI project managers would introduce themselves, disappear more or less for about 18 months, and then reappear when they wanted to be promoted.

"They had six months to look for the new jobs, and they would start asking me questions about my cases. And they would say, 'Tell me about this case. Brief me up on it,'" Friend explained.

"They were looking through my cases and trying to find one that they could say they had some sort of oversight with [because] if they put one piece of paper with their name in the file that I had done everything on, they could claim credit for it."

Friend further claimed that most of these ladder-climbers had very little understanding of how law enforcement actually works. "They didn't know how to investigate crime," he said. "... They didn't even know how to arrest someone. They'd never put handcuffs on anyone."

'It's a lot worse in the lower levels than people think.'

O'Boyle painted an even grimmer picture of the lengths to which some lowly agents were willing to go to advance: "The type of people that promote, you'll often see that they only have five or six or seven years of actual investigative experience, because typically the people who are rising [through] the ranks are doing so at any cost, and they don't care how many throats they have to slit along the way to get there."

O'Boyle indicated that once in power, these agents then prove their mettle further by bullying subordinates and collecting metaphorical "scalps."

"Typically you would find one or two people on your squad getting singled out for punitive management. And it was often like, why are you targeting that guy? What did he do that was so different than anybody else?"

Such agents already have a "compromised moral character," O'Boyle said, and since they range from the lowliest recruits to the highest echelons, the FBI is riddled with those who do not uphold traditional American values.

"Maybe 15, 20 years ago, the rank and file were by and large patriotic Americans," O'Boyle said. But now, "it's getting closer and closer to just being completely overrun by the cultural Marxists."

"This is not just a problem with the people at the top. They clearly are the worst of the worst, and they're steering the ship. But I would say especially the last probably decade or so, certainly the last five years, the types of people they're hiring out of the wokest of the woke 'educational institutions' is fundamentally changing what the bureau used to be," he added.

"It's a lot worse in the lower levels than people think."

'Best-case scenario': Kash Patel and hope on the horizon

O'Boyle and Friend, who both indicated they joined the FBI because they believed in the mission and wanted to serve their country, are optimistic that the FBI can begin returning to that core mission under a second Trump term.

'We need @Kash_Patel confirmed ASAP.'

Not only are both men confident that Kash Patel will be confirmed as FBI director, but they believe that he will be able to effect change there, even if, as Friend suggested, the agency is still "infested" with people who want to thwart his efforts.

"I didn't think that there was a solution for the FBI. I thought we should just do away with it, shatter it to a thousand pieces, scatter it to the wind," said Friend, who was financially devastated after he came forward with his J6-related allegations against the FBI. Friend changed his mind about the bureau after he "looked at Kash Patel's resume ... [and] interacted with him."

"We need @Kash_Patel confirmed ASAP," he tweeted on January 23.

O'Boyle — who has been on unpaid suspension from the FBI for about two and a half years after blowing the whistle on a range of issues from alleged COVID and J6 tyranny to persecution of undercover journalist James O'Keefe — called the pending confirmation of Patel "the best-case scenario for me personally."

"I talked to one of my attorneys yesterday, and he's more than optimistic about what lays ahead for me."

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