FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend disputed testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray Wednesday, saying the agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Force surveilled parents.
Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday during a hearing titled “Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” During the hearing, he faced tough questions from Republicans on the committee over the targeting of parents protesting at school board meetings, the reported presence of FBI sources at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building and the conduct of the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago. (RELATED: ‘Do You Share This View?’: GOP Presidential Candidate Lists 15 Questions For FBI Director Ahead Of Hearing)
“The FBI is not in the business of investigating or policing speech at school board meetings, or anywhere else for that matter, and we’re not gonna start now,” Wray told Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of California. “Now, violence, threats of violence, that’s a different matter.”
The @FBI Director told @JudiciaryGOP that special agents did not conduct surveillance of school boards. He lied. The Joint Terrorism Task Force in my office did it. I testified about the details in May.
— Steve Friend (@RealStevefriend) July 12, 2023
Friend disputed Wray’s comments, citing his testimony during a May 18 hearing by the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. “The @FBI Director told @JudiciaryGOP that special agents did not conduct surveillance of school boards,” Friend tweeted Wednesday. “He lied. The Joint Terrorism Task Force in my office did it. I testified about the details in May.”
“Mission creep within the National Security Branch has refocused counterterrorism from legitimate foreign actors to political opponents within our borders,” Friend told the select subcommittee in May. “The FBI weaponizes process crimes and reinterprets laws to initiate pretextual prosecutions and persecute its political enemies.”
Friend also disputed Wray’s claim during the that no FBI agents were diverted from investigating cases of child sexual exploitation.
“The @FBI Director told @RepTroyNehls that no agents were reassigned from child exploitation investigations to domestic terrorism,” Friend tweeted Wednesday. “Another lie. I was reassigned from child pornography cases and told those cases were going to be considered a ‘local matter.’”
Friend says he was retaliated against after he raised concerns about the FBI’s handling of cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol building. Friend accused the FBI of violating HIPPA and the Privacy Act in the course of retaliating against him after he followed whistleblower procedures in a Feb. 24 Daily Caller op-ed.
This article has been updated.
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