The FBI agent leading the investigation of the second attempt on President Donald Trump’s life was the subject of an internal “retaliation investigation” for anti-Trump and anti-conservative bias, a whistleblower revealed.
Jeff Veltri, the FBI Miami Field Office Special Agent in Charge (SAC), who is now leading the investigation of Trump would-be assassin Ryan Routh, was investigated by the FBI for retaliating against conservatives inside the agency by identifying them as a “security concern.”
Veltri, who previously served as a section chief in the Security Division at FBI Headquarters during the time the so-called “Trump questionnaire” was used by the FBI, had already been accused of retaliating against conservatives. Earlier reports revealing he was instructed to purge his social media of anti-conservative and anti-Trump posts before being promoted.
The revelation came in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) from Empower Oversight, a whistleblower organization whose client, former FBI Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen, is testifying before the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Wednesday, September 25. Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt is testifying as well.
2024-09-19 Tl to Jordan-hjc – FBI (1) by Breitbart News on Scribd
According to the report, “under then-acting DAD Veltri, the FBI’s Security Division (“SecD”) probed the political beliefs and personal medical decisions of FBI employees as part of its security clearance investigations. Additional whistleblowers from inside SecD have provided us information that SecD leadership improperly encouraged using those factors when considering suspending and revoking FBI employee security clearances to remove them from the FBI—without properly documenting those factors in FBI files.”
The report continues that “witnesses also heard Veltri openly state that while FBI employees might have First Amendment rights, they had no right to a security clearance. It’s hard to imagine a clearer signal from a SecD leader that he approved, if not encouraged, leveraging security clearances as pretext to purge employees in a way that could not otherwise be done constitutionally.”
Among numerous instances included in the report, Veltri ordered that an FBI Intelligence Analyst who had a discussion on an FBI IT system in which he wrote he believed the 2020 election was possibly stolen and would like to see the outcome of voter fraud investigations have his clearance revoked.
The report says Veltri “made comments suggesting to witnesses that he thought this employee was not entitled to a security clearance because the employee did not believe in the Constitution.”
In another troubling occasion,whistleblowers reported Veltri said an agent’s “Christian beliefs as a devout Catholic were a reason to revoke his access to classified information.”
“Again, it is difficult to imagine a clearer signal from a SecD leader that improper considerations about an FBI employee’s protected First Amendment religious beliefs unconstitutionally infected the security clearance process” the report reads.
On at least one occasion, Veltri’s decision to revoke a security clearance was overturned when it became clear it was not based on the facts of the case.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.