The House Judiciary's Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government will reveal, through three FBI whistleblowers' testimonies, how politics is "driving the agenda in too many of our federal agencies," Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a press conference before the proceedings were to begin.
"Don't believe me? Read the Durham report from a couple of days ago," Jordan said. "They outline where you had the FBI and the Justice Department start an investigation with no predicate, no evidence, no probable cause whatsoever."
But it's even "worse" than that, said Jordan, because the FBI is "not just going after presidential candidates and presidential campaigns. Today it's the American people."
That means "if you're a parent attending a school board meeting, pro-life or praying at a clinic, a Catholic simply going to Mass, you are a target of the government, a target of the FBI," said Jordan.
"Maybe even worse, if you're one of the thousands of good employees, the brave whistleblowers who are willing to come forward, if you're one of those folks willing to come forward and talk about what's going on out there, you will get attacked. They will try to crush you."
FBI whistleblowers Marcus Allen, Stephen Friend, and Garret O'Boyle are to testify about the retaliation they have experienced, but the committee has talked to "over two dozen," said Jordan.
"You will hear how they come talked about those very things I just mentioned, the school boards issue, the Catholic memo, this effort to inflate and make every case seem as if it is some domestic violence extremism case," said Jordan. "You will also hear how the FBI retaliated against these guys. … We think it will be a powerful hearing [with] powerful testimony from some great Americans who have served our country and been retaliated against because they were willing to give us valuable information about the targeting of American people."
Several other Republican members of the committee also commented during the press conference, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who said the FBI has been "victimized" by politicization, resulting in the targeting of Americans.
"Whistleblowers saw those bad acts," said Gaetz. "They stepped forward. They were retaliated against and crushed as a consequence. Our work today will build on the work of special counsel Durham who said recently that in the FBI there was confirmation bias, an over willingness to rely on information from officials connected to political opponents."
The whistleblowers who are testifying, Gaetz said, are "brave patriots" who spoke up about the FBI's actions.
Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said the hearing is important as it will show how Americans are becoming victims of the FBI's politicization.
"If you are a parent, and you attend a school board meeting, there could be an FBI agent in the parking lot scribbling down your license plate number," she said. "This is not a conspiracy theory. This is actually testimony that these brave whistleblowers have given us.
"That is not the America that I know. If you are a Catholic, and you want to attend Catholic Mass, perhaps there is an informant inside reporting on what you are doing inside. This is the thing that novels are written about."
The retaliation against the FBI whistleblowers and their families is targeted against "men who have served our country, both in law enforcement and the U.S. military," said Cammack. "These are decorated individuals who were led down a path to find themselves left out in the cold. This was by design."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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