The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s Office intends to interview former FBI special agent Steve Friend regarding allegations he has raised about the agency.
Last fall, Friend came forward with concerns about the FBI’s handling of child sexual abuse cases and its arrests of individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol. Friend alleged the agency was excessively using heavily armed SWAT teams to arrest individuals suspected of committing misdemeanor offenses on Jan. 6. He objected to one such SWAT raid on Aug. 24.
Friend further alleged that the FBI has departed from its everyday case management practices and has widely listed field offices around the country as the lead investigators in domestic violent extremism (DVE) cases while agency officials in Washington are actually directing the cases. Friend alleged the FBI had pressured its agents to prioritize these DVE cases, which created an inflated sense of the threat posed by domestic extremists. At the same time, Friend said the FBI had explicitly taken its focus off child sexual abuse cases, telling him that such cases are “no longer an FBI priority.”…