A whistleblower came forward with the name of a second FBI official who allegedly pressured agents to label cases as “domestic violent extremism” to boost case numbers, according to House Judiciary Committee Republicans.
Jill Sanborn, a now-Roku employee who worked at the FBI for more than two decades, is one of now two officials a whistleblower has identified as having “exerted pressure on agents to reclassify cases as DVE [domestic violent extremism] matters,” according to a letter sent to Sanborn on Wednesday and obtained by Breitbart News.
The letter, written by Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and committee member Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), comes on the heels of the whistleblower contacting Jordan’s office in July and accusing another FBI official, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault, of also seeking to inflate domestic violent extremism case numbers.
Read a copy of the letter to Sanborn below:
Jordan contacted FBI Director Christopher Wray about the initial accusation on July 27, stating, “FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification.”
The whistleblower allegations, Jordan noted, were “scandalous” considering the Biden administration’s push to frame domestic violent extremism as America’s “greatest threat.”
Jordan requested at the time that Wray provide his committee with an array of documents related to the allegations by August 10 at 5:00 p.m. Wray had not responded to the request as of the time of this publishing, a committee spokesperson confirmed.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jordan’s counterpart in the Senate, questioned Wray this month on Thibault harboring potential “political bias.”
Wray responded to Grassley, “I want to be careful not to comment at the moment on ongoing personnel matters.”
Grassley’s questioning came after he too received a whistleblower allegation against Thibault, but this one being that Thibault quashed investigative activity related to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Prior to the exchange with Wray, Grassley said during a Fox News interview that Wray had informed him that Thibault would no longer be making decisions about which investigations the FBI should pursue.
The new letter, sent from the House Judiciary Republicans to Sanborn, now requests Sanborn appear before the committee for a “transcribed interview” to testify about the new whistleblower allegations.
The House Judiciary Committee has oversight jurisdiction over the FBI and can conduct official investigations and issue subpoenas, but committee Democrats, who have majority power, control such activity and have been loath to pursue allegations from recent FBI whistleblowers.
Sanborn could voluntarily participate in the requested transcribed interview, which would typically take place under oath and behind closed doors, but she is not required to.
Prior to leaving the FBI, Sanborn appeared before Congress last year and spoke about how “domestic violent extremists will continue to pose an elevated threat of violence to the United States”:
FBI’s counterterrorism Chief Jill Sanborn: “2019 was the most fatal year for domestic violent extremist attacks since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.”
Full video here: https://t.co/GMokeaSgbk pic.twitter.com/AGpLVeKoVw
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 29, 2021
Jordan’s office has fielded allegations from more than a dozen FBI whistleblowers this year, but this latest allegation about padding domestic violent extremism numbers comes at a time when the FBI is under widespread scrutiny over what many have described as “politicization” after it raided former President Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago on Monday.
Several House Republican leaders issued scathing rebukes of the FBI and Department of Justice after the raid, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vowed to investigate Attorney General Merrick Garland on the matter next year should Republicans take the majority.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/10/exclusive-whistleblower-names-another-fbi-official-who-allegedly-pressured-agents-to-pad-domestic-extremism-stats/