'Merry band of looters' at Trump DOJ accused of paying millions to 'disgraced' FBI agents
The top-ranking Democrat in the House Judiciary Committee published a letter on Tuesday accusing Trump's Department of Justice of forcing the FBI to pay a "merry band of looters" and disgraced agents, including white nationalist allies and a Jan. 6 participant.
"It has come to our attention that you have used your office to improperly shower government cash on Donald Trump's political operatives and sycophants," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wrote in a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
According to Raskin's seven-page letter, Blanche oversaw a DOJ office that ordered the FBI to "pay millions of dollars" to nearly a dozen "disgraced" agents accused of "criminal activity" and "major breaches of national security."
One such agent had their clearance suspended and then revoked because of "his presence within the restricted area of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021," referring to the violent riots that infamous day.
"The agent provided false and misleading information to investigators," Raskin wrote. "Despite this damning evidence, DOJ Office of the Deputy Attorney General agreed to make a lump sum payment of $63,500 to him and backpay amounting to hundreds of thousands of additional dollars."
Special agent Steven Friend was similarly reinstated despite his illegally recording FBI conversations, downloading classified FBI documents, and participating in "unsanctioned media interviews with Russian state media outlets," Raskin wrote.
The DOJ Office of the Deputy Attorney General again ordered the FBI to pay Friend more than $61,000 and "give him hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay."
The same DOJ office directed the FBI to reinstate an FBI agent who refused to investigate "a violent white nationalist group, Patriot Front," and procured prostitutes while on assignment.
Raskin pointed out in his letter that the DOJ official negotiating the payments to these disgraced agents is Vance Day, who is known for "hanging up a picture of Adolf Hitler in his chambers" and "refusing to marry same-sex couples as an Oregon state court judge."
He added that the senior-most current staffers for Senator Grassley "explicitly instructed DOJ to issue these payments." Raskin called Grassley and the DOJ Office of the Deputy Attorney General a "merry band of looters."
In a Tuesday article, Politico reached out to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his office framed the payments as whistleblower settlements.
"This seven-page screed is a disgusting and defamatory attempt to smear legitimate whistleblowers while protecting their Biden administration retaliators," Grassley's spokesperson Clare Slattery told Politico. "Senator Grassley stands by his efforts to defend and protect all whistleblowers."