The FBI whistleblower was investigated and later had his security clearance revoked after he allegedly spread “extremist propaganda” by forwarding news articles from so-called “questionable sources” to his boss and colleagues, including RealClearPolitics, a popular political news and polling aggregator.
FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen had his security clearance suspended in January 2022, four months after he sent an email that flagged him as having a “link from a suspicious source,” according to a letter from the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight sent to a congressional committee Thursday.
A September 29, 2021 email questioned the accuracy of testimony given by FBI Director Christopher Wray to Congress earlier that year regarding the extent to which a confidential FBI informant was involved in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
The Post reviewed portions of a non-classified investigative file on a former FBI employee, which revealed that the bureau based its decision about RealClear entirely on an analyst’s “open-source research” into rankings provided by the website mediabiasfactcheck.com.
Allen’s email also cited a report “out of the New York Times” in which Empower President Tristan Leavitt wrote a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) saying there was a confidential informant on Capitol Hill.
“It is highly unlikely that DC elements in our organization will be forthcoming about the events of the day or the impact of government assets,” he wrote in a letter to the leadership chain.
Former FBI Washington Field Office Deputy Director Stephen D’Antuono testified before a judicial panel in June 2023 that the FBI actually lost count of its informants and later had to audit how many were in Washington, D.C., to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally hosted by former President Donald Trump.
Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund also confirmed that the FBI had 18 undercover agents in the crowd and that there were 20 more from the Department of Homeland Security.
However, Allen’s internal security disclosure led to an investigation by the FBI’s Security Service.
An initial assessment by the country’s internal threat office cited Allen’s comments about the emails and the indictment of the Jan. 6 rioters, as well as his “vaccine hesitancy and hostility to government mandates for vaccines, openness to conspiracy theories, and hostile views toward the U.S. government.”
The assessment found that “ALLEN poses an internal threat to the FBI.”
A subsequent assessment added that Allen’s September 2021 email “was the culmination of a linear pattern of escalating hostility that ultimately could lead to direct influence or manipulation of information that could directly impede FBI mission objectives.”
The evaluation also found that Allen “attempted to persuade colleagues and supervisors to defy legal precedent and protocol in favor of extremist propaganda.”
As for the RealClearPolitics link, the review argued that the popular aggregator “takes legitimate information and adds specific language to make the information more favorable to right-wing readers,” even though the FBI used the link in its own Daily News Bulletin earlier that month.
Even the person in charge of the Allen case disputed that the investigation into the award-winning Marine Corps noncommissioned officer and staff operations specialist who served in Kuwait and Iraq was based on the premise that his security clearance should be revoked for failing to swear allegiance to the United States.
Nonetheless, in a letter to Jordan, Leavitt wrote that “Allen’s protected whistleblower disclosure was the sole prerequisite to initiating a security clearance investigation” and was a “key basis” for the suspension of his security clearance on January 10, 2022.
In Allen’s case, his security clearance was suspended a little over a week before a federal court was scheduled to issue an injunction against the Biden administration’s government-wide vaccine mandate, based in part on his COVID-19 vaccination status.
Allen’s security clearance, which had been suspended over concerns about his “loyalty to the United States,” was restored earlier this year under a settlement with the FBI.
He resigned from the office after receiving full refunds of unpaid wages and benefits that had been denied him during the investigation.
In 2019, Allen was named Employee of the Year for his work with the FBI Charlotte Field Office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Other FBI whistleblowers have alleged that then-Acting Deputy Director of the Secret Service, Jeffrey Veltri, was one of several officials who used litmus tests to “weed out” political conservatives like Allen from the FBI.
As of Monday, Beltri was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, where he also oversaw the investigation into the second assassination attempt on Trump.
His appointment to lead the South Florida office was delayed in part because of an investigation into his retaliation against an FBI whistleblower, according to a letter Leavitt sent Thursday.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is currently reviewing disclosures from at least four whistleblowers represented by Empower Oversight about Veltri’s conduct and alleged FBI security clearance abuses involving Allen and others.
“Special Agent in Charge Veltri was selected through a competitive process to lead the Miami Field Office and has been appointed to carry out FBI missions in a fair and impartial manner,” the FBI said in a statement. “Reported allegations of political bias influencing decision-making, targeting of former military personnel, and alleged abuse of power on SAC Veltri’s social media accounts and posts are verifiably false.”
“The FBI has full confidence in the leadership of SAC Veltri of the Miami Field Office and in his investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump,” the FBI added. “This investigation is a top priority for the FBI. We are working closely with our partners, and hundreds of personnel from FBI Headquarters, Quantico, and multiple field offices are supporting this effort. All of us at the FBI are committed to conducting this investigation in a fact-driven, rule-based manner.”
Allen, Leavitt and Horowitz are scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government on September 25 about various allegations of FBI abuse of power.
The FBI did not respond to RealClearPolitics’ request for further comment on the story.
The site’s publisher, Tom Bevan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
