Conspiracy theorists to address US House subcommittee, watchdog warns

Witnesses set to testify to Congress about the “weaponisation” of the US government on Thursday have links to far-right groups and a history of supporting conspiracy theories about coronavirus vaccines and the January 6 insurrection, a congressional watchdog has warned.

In February, Republicans in the House of Representatives created a panel on what they say is the politicisation of the FBI and justice department against conservatives. Critics saw it as an attempt to entangle Joe Biden in spurious investigations ahead of next year’s election.

On Thursday the judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, an ally of former US president Donald Trump, will hold its latest hearing on Capitol Hill. Research by the Congressional Integrity Project, a group that monitors the Republican investigations, suggests that its witnesses will come armed with political grudges.

Among them is Stephen Friend, a former FBI special agent who claims to be an FBI “whistleblower” despite failing to receive federal whistleblower protections.

Last September, the project notes, Friend was suspended from the FBI after filing an official complaint alleging that the “politicised” bureau was using “overzealous” January 6 investigations to “harass conservative Americans”. He had already been declared absent without leave for refusing to participate in Swat raids against insurrection suspects.

The project adds: “Friend has a record of collaborating with Trump’s closest allies. He received payments and legal counsel, and even received a job, from a Maga group affiliated with former senior Trump administration official Russ Vought. Kash Patel sent Friend $5,000 almost immediately after they connected in November 2022, and gave Friend a job at a far-right thinktank.

“Friend has been celebrated in rightwing circles, especially among Maga pundits, and is poised to release a book with an introduction and foreword by two rightwing figures.”

Friend is also a regular contributor to an exposé-style blog run by “an early and prominent promoter” of the QAnon conspiracy theory and has suggested that Covid-19 vaccines were ineffective, with public health restrictions designed to engineer “societal changes”.

Witness Garret O’Boyle is a former FBI special agent who last year filed a complaint alleging that the FBI was exaggerating the threat of domestic terrorism. Soon after, he alleged that the FBI suspended him, claiming, “The FBI retaliated against me for being a whistleblower.”

O’Boyle is a prolific Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theorist, and once compared Covid-19 vaccine mandates to the Nazi regime. He signed on to a major federal lawsuit against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for federal employees and once referred to a subset of vaccinated individuals involved in an FBI investigation as “blind sheep”.

The project says O’Boyle has supported and publicly engaged with an “early and prominent” QAnon influencer known as Tracy Diaz, who has been banned from Patreon, Facebook and Twitter and is labeled as an extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

O’Boyle is an election denier who has liked tweets claiming “two blatantly stolen elections”. He claims the FBI has retaliated against him for resisting investigations into the January 6 insurrection, writing: “The government has an obsession with ‘Insurrectionists.’ They hate them. They [want to] round them up, hold them in perpetuity.”

Another witness is Marcus Oryan Allen, a staff operations specialist for the FBI who was suspended and had his security clearance revoked after the bureau found he “espoused conspiratorial views … which indicates support for the events of January 6th”.

Last December, Allen filed a lawsuit claiming that his suspension violated his first amendment rights, arguing that the FBI’s rules “regarding loyalty to the United States is overbroad”. The FBI called these claims “meritless”, pointing out that Allen’s complaint “identifie[d] no speech” that was being violated.

The project says Allen is represented by Judicial Watch, a far-right group that has spread false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, warned of attempts to “rig the 2024 election” against Trump, and condemned Trump’s recent indictment as a “hoax” and “bunk”.

Witnesses also include Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, which describes itself as a “legal watchdog” and, the project says, has downplayed the seriousness of the January 6 riot or sought to shift the blame elsewhere.

Leavitt represents a number of suspended or retired FBI employees who claim to be “whistleblowers” and helped congressional Republicans’ highly politicised investigation targeting Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, said: “These witnesses are extreme for even Jim Jordan’s standards, but we shouldn’t be surprised he’s continuing to hand-pick conspiracy theorists and insurrection supporters to appear before the so-called ‘weaponisation’ subcommittee.

“The witnesses are Trump loyalists who will go to any lengths to defend the former president’s lies, just like Jordan himself.”