Washington
FBI agents who accused bureau of politicization during Biden administration reach settlements
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has reached settlements with a group of current and former FBI agents who have said they were disciplined for invoking personal and political views, including about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the COVID-19 vaccine, and for clashing with supervisors about approaches to investigations, their lawyers said last week.
Empower Oversight, a group founded and led by former staff members of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, announced the resolutions of 10 cases, including eight settlements in the last few weeks.
Many of the cases concern agents who had accused the FBI of politicization during President Joe Biden’s administration, a claim leadership denied. Some had resisted the mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine and complained about what they saw as overreach during the bureau’s sprawling investigation into Jan. 6. One attended President Donald Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that day and later showed up at the Capitol but was not involved in any violence, his lawyers said.
Three of the agents are returning to duty at the FBI. Others are being permitted to voluntarily retire, and some are receiving restoration of back pay and benefits, the organization said in a statement announcing the deals. The FBI did not return an email seeking comment, though Director Kash Patel said on social media last week that agreements had been reached.
The resolutions come even as the FBI under Patel has moved to reassign and outright dismiss experienced senior executives for unclear reasons. The bureau this month fired, among others, a former acting director who had resisted a Trump administration demand to produce the names of agents who participated in Jan. 6 investigations. The head of its Washington field office, who had played an important role in those probes, was also forced out.
The FBI Agents Association has warned that those terminations were done without due process.
The settlements announced Tuesday include agents who were held up by Republican lawmakers looking to establish that the FBI during the Biden administration had become intolerant of the expression of conservative viewpoints — something Patel’s predecessor, Chris Wray, vigorously denied. Several testified before a special House committee in 2023 investigating what Republicans called the “weaponization” of the federal government against conservatives.
Democrats dismissed the testimony, calling the hearing another attempt by Republicans on the committee to help Trump.
Those being reinstated include Steve Friend, who has said he was suspended and later resigned after refusing to participate in a SWAT team arrest of a Jan. 6 suspect, and also objected to a COVID vaccine mandate.
Another is Garret O’Boyle, who complained to Congress about the FBI’s handling of Jan. 6 investigations. His lawyers said he was suspended after being suspected of improperly leaking case information about conservative activist group Project Veritas to the organization, which he denied.
Also reinstated was Zachery Schoffstall, whose lawyers say he was disciplined after he complained about the exclusion of what he believed was exculpatory information in an FBI affidavit during an investigation into a white nationalist hate group.
One of the 10 settlements was reached last year, when the Biden administration agreed to restore the security clearance of Marcus Allen, another FBI employee who had accused the bureau of politicizing its work. He formally resigned.
Wisconsin
Conservative State Supreme Court justice won’t run again
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Friday that she will not seek reelection, creating an open race for a seat on the court that’s controlled 4-3 by liberals.
Justice Rebecca Bradley’s decision not to run for a second full term comes after conservative candidates for the highest court in the battleground state have lost each of the past two elections by double-digit margins. Both of those races broke national spending records and the liberal won in April despite heavy spending by billionaire Elon Musk.
Liberal state Supreme Court candidates have won four of the past five races, resulting in them taking over the majority in 2023, breaking a 15-year run of conservative control. Regardless of who wins the April election, liberals will maintain their 4-3 court majority until at least 2028. If they can win next year, their majority would increase to 5-2.
The open race comes as several high-profile issues could make their way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming months, including abortion, collective bargaining rights, congressional redistricting and election rules.
Chris Taylor, a state appeals court judge and former Democratic state lawmaker, is the only announced candidate.
Bradley had said in April that she planned to run again, but ultimately changed her mind.
“I will not seek reelection to the Wisconsin Supreme Court because I believe the best path for me to rebuild the conservative movement and fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court,” she said in a statement.
Bradley said her warnings about the court being controlled by “judicial activists” went unheeded “and Wisconsin has seen only the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court.”
“The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it,” she said.
Bradley, 54, was appointed to the Supreme Court by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and won election to a full 10-year term in 2016. Before joining the court, Bradley had served three years as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge and a year as a state appeals court judge.
Bradley was a reliable conservative voice on the court, dissenting on a July ruling that found an 1849 Wisconsin law did not ban abortions. Another case, brought by Planned Parenthood that seeks to make abortion a constitutional right, has been accepted by the court, but a date for oral arguments has not been set.
When conservatives had the majority, Bradley voted to uphold the Act 10 law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most state workers. A new challenge to that law is in the state appeals court and could go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Bradley also voted with conservative justices in a 2020 case brought by President Donald Trump in a failed attempt to overturn his loss in Wisconsin that year. The court ruled 4-3 against Trump.
And she sided with the conservative majority in a ruling banning absentee ballot drop boxes that was later overturned by the liberal-controlled court.
FBI agents who accused bureau of politicization during Biden administration reach settlements
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has reached settlements with a group of current and former FBI agents who have said they were disciplined for invoking personal and political views, including about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the COVID-19 vaccine, and for clashing with supervisors about approaches to investigations, their lawyers said last week.
Empower Oversight, a group founded and led by former staff members of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, announced the resolutions of 10 cases, including eight settlements in the last few weeks.
Many of the cases concern agents who had accused the FBI of politicization during President Joe Biden’s administration, a claim leadership denied. Some had resisted the mandate to take the COVID-19 vaccine and complained about what they saw as overreach during the bureau’s sprawling investigation into Jan. 6. One attended President Donald Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that day and later showed up at the Capitol but was not involved in any violence, his lawyers said.
Three of the agents are returning to duty at the FBI. Others are being permitted to voluntarily retire, and some are receiving restoration of back pay and benefits, the organization said in a statement announcing the deals. The FBI did not return an email seeking comment, though Director Kash Patel said on social media last week that agreements had been reached.
The resolutions come even as the FBI under Patel has moved to reassign and outright dismiss experienced senior executives for unclear reasons. The bureau this month fired, among others, a former acting director who had resisted a Trump administration demand to produce the names of agents who participated in Jan. 6 investigations. The head of its Washington field office, who had played an important role in those probes, was also forced out.
The FBI Agents Association has warned that those terminations were done without due process.
The settlements announced Tuesday include agents who were held up by Republican lawmakers looking to establish that the FBI during the Biden administration had become intolerant of the expression of conservative viewpoints — something Patel’s predecessor, Chris Wray, vigorously denied. Several testified before a special House committee in 2023 investigating what Republicans called the “weaponization” of the federal government against conservatives.
Democrats dismissed the testimony, calling the hearing another attempt by Republicans on the committee to help Trump.
Those being reinstated include Steve Friend, who has said he was suspended and later resigned after refusing to participate in a SWAT team arrest of a Jan. 6 suspect, and also objected to a COVID vaccine mandate.
Another is Garret O’Boyle, who complained to Congress about the FBI’s handling of Jan. 6 investigations. His lawyers said he was suspended after being suspected of improperly leaking case information about conservative activist group Project Veritas to the organization, which he denied.
Also reinstated was Zachery Schoffstall, whose lawyers say he was disciplined after he complained about the exclusion of what he believed was exculpatory information in an FBI affidavit during an investigation into a white nationalist hate group.
One of the 10 settlements was reached last year, when the Biden administration agreed to restore the security clearance of Marcus Allen, another FBI employee who had accused the bureau of politicizing its work. He formally resigned.
Wisconsin
Conservative State Supreme Court justice won’t run again
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Friday that she will not seek reelection, creating an open race for a seat on the court that’s controlled 4-3 by liberals.
Justice Rebecca Bradley’s decision not to run for a second full term comes after conservative candidates for the highest court in the battleground state have lost each of the past two elections by double-digit margins. Both of those races broke national spending records and the liberal won in April despite heavy spending by billionaire Elon Musk.
Liberal state Supreme Court candidates have won four of the past five races, resulting in them taking over the majority in 2023, breaking a 15-year run of conservative control. Regardless of who wins the April election, liberals will maintain their 4-3 court majority until at least 2028. If they can win next year, their majority would increase to 5-2.
The open race comes as several high-profile issues could make their way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming months, including abortion, collective bargaining rights, congressional redistricting and election rules.
Chris Taylor, a state appeals court judge and former Democratic state lawmaker, is the only announced candidate.
Bradley had said in April that she planned to run again, but ultimately changed her mind.
“I will not seek reelection to the Wisconsin Supreme Court because I believe the best path for me to rebuild the conservative movement and fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court,” she said in a statement.
Bradley said her warnings about the court being controlled by “judicial activists” went unheeded “and Wisconsin has seen only the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court.”
“The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it,” she said.
Bradley, 54, was appointed to the Supreme Court by then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and won election to a full 10-year term in 2016. Before joining the court, Bradley had served three years as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge and a year as a state appeals court judge.
Bradley was a reliable conservative voice on the court, dissenting on a July ruling that found an 1849 Wisconsin law did not ban abortions. Another case, brought by Planned Parenthood that seeks to make abortion a constitutional right, has been accepted by the court, but a date for oral arguments has not been set.
When conservatives had the majority, Bradley voted to uphold the Act 10 law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most state workers. A new challenge to that law is in the state appeals court and could go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Bradley also voted with conservative justices in a 2020 case brought by President Donald Trump in a failed attempt to overturn his loss in Wisconsin that year. The court ruled 4-3 against Trump.
And she sided with the conservative majority in a ruling banning absentee ballot drop boxes that was later overturned by the liberal-controlled court.
