police officer in savannah, georgia and as an f.b.i. agent mr. friend spent seven years working human trafficking investigations and investigating crimes against children. prior to blowing the whistle in 2022 mr. friend had received several awards from the f.b.i. for his performance. mr. friend is a graduate of the university of notre dame and again after this service to our country, the f.b.i. questions his loyalty to the country. mr. allen is a whistleblower and staff operation special with the f.b.i. charlotte field office. he served 20 years of experience as an intelligence professional in the f.b.i. and united states armed services. prior to joining the f.b.i. mr. allen served in the united states marine corps including service in iraq, kuwait and japan. in the marines he received several awards including the navy and marine corps come pendation medal.
thank you, god bless you. mr. friend. your opening statement. thank you, chairman jordan and members of the committee. i m steven friend, a senior fellow for the center for i was a special agent for the f.b.i. for 8 1/2 years. i investigated 200 violent crimes, aggravated assault, murder, child abuse, rape, robbery, child molest titian, child pornography and human trafficking and served five years on an f.b.i. swat team and spent five years as a local officer in georgia. in august of 2022 i made protected whistleblowers disclosure to my supervisors and special agent in charge about my concern about january 6th investigations. i believed our departures from case management rules in the domestic investigations guide
have presented. thank you. thank you, mr. friend. appreciate your testimony. mr. allen. you are recognized for your opening statement. hello. my name is markus allen, a staff operations in the field office. due to retaliation i have been suspended without pay for over a year. thank you to the committee for allowing me time to convey my concerns about the current f.b.i. and particular i m concerned and i believe this committee should also be concerned about the f.b.i. s use of the security clearance process to retaliate against whistleblowers. first, just so you know a little bit about me i served honorably in the united states marine corps from 2000 to 2005. i was deployed to kuwait and served two tours in iraq and contributed to operation iraqi freedom. i was exposed to liven me fire on numerous occasions even though i served in intelligence
colleagues. exercising caution in opening investigations into people who are involved in january 6th, raising the possibility that there were federal law enforcement agencies who infiltrated the crowd on january 6th. there was another man featured there, steven friend, someone who objected to using a s.w.a.t. team to arrest someone who was involved in january 6th. he also, according to a letter we got from the fbi, took a flash drive into the fbi, went into the fbi building, used it to download documents on an fbi computer. so the fbi in this letter is laying out what they believe believe are reasonable explanations for why these people have had their security clearances pulled. were they awe lowed to present that testimony at the hearing? democrats were complaining they have not been given access to the interviews here. the fbi was not featured in this hearing. they have interviewed fbi officials behind closed doors. and as part of the follow-up of those interviews, the fbi provid
very much so, tumultuous week with the durham report released on monday and typically don t hear the fbi or see the fbi fight back in any way and talk about specific cases, but we obtained a letter from the fbi to congress that explains why these three whistleblowers were suspended. just take a listen to this. you may think i m a political partisan. you may think i am a grifter. you may think i m a conspiracy theorist. it does not matter. this committee should avoid the temptation to impune the character and the motivation of the messengers seated before you. steven friend, his file, september 2022, fbi space and downloaded documents to an unauthorized removable flash drive. the fbi then required mr. friend to attend a security awareness briefing regarding his actions