House Democrats appoint ‘so-called’ congressman to sabotage hearings and whistleblowers

Miranda Devin

Notice

By Miranda Devin

March 15, 2023 | 10:26 p.m.

Now that Democrats are in the minority in the House and unable to abuse their power as easily as they have for the past two years, they are resorting to outright lies to sabotage oversight hearings and vilify whistleblowers. and other troublesome witnesses.

They have named a little-known Democrat by the name of Stacey Plaskett, who is not even a full member of Congress, as the queen of this misinformation operation.

Plaskett’s favorite adjective is “so-called,” which is ironic since she’s a so-called congresswoman.

She is not eligible to vote as an at-large delegate for the US Virgin Islands.

Yet she is a top member of the select subcommittee on federal militarization, the first time a nonvoting delegate has held such a senior position.

After smearing two freelance journalists, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, as “so-called journalists” who endangered people’s lives by exposing Twitter’s censorship regime, Plaskett and his colleague did the dirty work, Rep. New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, attack FBI whistleblowers.

In an unauthorized 316-page report filled with lies and misleadingly edited quotes from his confidential testimony before the committee last month, Plaskett and Nadler derided FBI hero Agent Steve Friend as of “so-called” whistleblower.

War on whistleblowers

They lied about the status of his whistleblower complaint to the DOJ Inspector General, breached his confidentiality by leaking selected portions of his testimony to the media, then falsely portrayed him as a lunatic on the payroll “far-right” Trump operatives. .

Friend, who first revealed his whistleblower complaint in The Post last year, sacrificed a career he loved as a respected member of the FBI’s Special Weapons and Tactics team in Florida to do what he did. it was necessary.

He exposed the ugly truth about a hyper-politicized office, cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism and using an overzealous investigation on January 6 to persecute conservatives and violate their constitutional rights.

He opposed a two-tier justice system in which Antifa revolutionaries commit domestic terrorism with impunity while the FBI attacks pro-life groups and mainstream Catholics who celebrate the Latin Mass.

For his troubles, Friend and his fellow FBI whistleblowers were exposed by Democrats in Congress whose slimy deceptions were uncritically amplified by the media.

The central allegation against Friend was that the Inspector General denied his whistleblower request.

But that’s just not true.

The IG confirmed this week that the investigation is ongoing and that Friend will be interviewed soon.

This admission was prompted by Friend’s lawyers from the whistleblower protection organization Empower Oversight.

After the release of the Democratic smear slip, Empower President Tristan Leavitt wrote to IG on March 6 asking him to set the record straight because his office’s silence was “hijacked by supporters and their media allies to leave a false impression on the public”. — all in the service of undermining a whistleblower for political gain.

On Monday, Assistant Inspector General Sean O’Neill confirmed in an official letter that the investigation was continuing.

“As we advised your office in early February, we wish to interview Mr. Friend about his allegations, which are still being assessed by our office. We will contact you shortly to schedule an interview.

So far, The Washington Post and Rolling Stone have issued corrections to certain aspects of their coverage.

But the damage is done.

The Plaskett-Nadler report was launched in an attempt to discredit the devastating testimony of Friend and other suspended FBI employees not as whistleblowers, but simply as “wronged” employees who “did subject of right-wing conspiracy theories. . . and received financial backing from a prominent ally of former President Donald J. Trump.”

The insinuation is that they are scammers and sellers.

The truth is that Friend, a father of two young children, was suspended without pay as soon as he filed his whistleblower complaint.

Then his wife lost her job under special circumstances.

Then the FBI denied him access to his firearms training records, which he needed to get a license to do security work in Florida.

He was forced to resign to earn a living.

The gotcha that wasn’t

So, yes, for five months without a paycheck, he gratefully accepted $5,000 from the 501(c) charity Fight With Kash, which was started by the former prosecutor, Trump adviser and House investigator. Intelligence Committee Russiagate Kash Patel precisely to help the FBI and other whistleblowers facing retaliation for speaking out publicly.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Patel knows full well, after his Russiagate woes, that it’s a very different story on the other side of the political fence.

If you’re useful to Democrats, a constellation of legal, financial, and narrative protections are delivered to you on a silver platter.

Take the BLM-Antifa rioters who were bailed out at the behest of Vice President Kamala Harris, or FBI agents like Timothy Thibault, who allegedly deleted evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop and still had to resign with a full board, and be represented pro bono by an expensive Democratic law firm.

It’s despicable to paint an act of charity as a form of corruption, but that’s what it’s happening in Washington, where Democrats are scrambling desperately to hide the abuses of the past two years. , whether it’s the dishonest account of their Jan .6 committee supporter, the cover-up of Biden’s corruption history, or the censorship industrial complex.

But the American people are beginning to see the truth.

The day Friend’s revelations were published in The Post, a stranger came to his door, a retired Marine who just wanted to shake his hand.

“He was crying,” Friend recalled.

“It meant a lot to people.”