Leaked whistleblower statement claims FBI 'suppressed' investigations into Trump allies: report

09 August 2023

A seasoned Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence officer told the United States Senate Judiciary Committee that he was ordered by his superiors to "stop investigating Rudy Giuliani and to cut off contact with any sources who reported on corruption by associates of former President Donald Trump," according to a whistleblower complaint that was exclusively obtained by Business Insider's Mattathias Schwartz.

"The agent, who served 14 years as a special agent for the bureau, including a long stint in Russia-focussed counter-intelligence, claims in a 22-page statement that his bosses interfered with his work in 'a highly suspicious suppression of investigations and intelligence-gathering' aimed at protecting 'certain politically active figures and possibly also FBI agents' who were connected to Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs," Schwartz writes. "Those figures, the statement claims, explicitly included 'anyone in the [Trump] White House and any former or current associates of President Trump.'"

Schwartz explains that the employee's account was "apparently leaked and posted in mid-July to a Substack newsletter. Insider has independently obtained a copy of the complaint and verified its authenticity, but has not corroborated all of its claims."

The unnamed individual said in an interview with Insider that he was motivated by the desire to "policymakers accountable, whether they're on the left or the right." According to Schwartz, the whistleblower felt the FBI was at "a decision point" and wondered, "Are we going to do public corruption or not?"

Schwartz continues, "The whistleblower told Insider that he was finally ordered to stop investigating Giuliani and the rest of the Trump White House in August 2022, after months of what he says were persistent efforts to frustrate his work, at a meeting with three FBI supervisors at a bureau field office. Insider was able to confirm the agent's account of the meeting with a second source with knowledge of what took place."

Schwartz notes that "the directions he received included a strict prohibition on filing intelligence reports relating to Giuliani or any other Trump associate" during an August 2022 meeting where he was fed "performance issues and concerns" despite having "eight consecutive years of "excellent" or "outstanding" work.

"In one case, the statement says, the agent developed information from confidential informants that Giuliani had allegedly done paid work for Pavel Fuks, a Ukrainian oligarch and 'asset of the Russian intelligence services.' (That charge was previously reported by Rolling Stone.) The whistleblower also looked into claims that Giuliani had fraudulently raised money from investors to produce a never-completed film about Joe Biden in the months before the 2020 election," Schwartz explains. "The agent's reporting on Giuliani wasn't received well in the bureau's New York field office, his statement says. 'In the midst of my reporting involving Giuliani, which had previously been identified by my supervisor as 'high impact,' my management told me they received a call from a supervisor in [the New York field office], who they did not identify,' the statement says. 'This supervisor had taken issue with my reporting.'"

Schwartz's full report is available at this link.

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