I wrote earlier about the House joint interim report and about the whistleblowers who have spoken out on the political rot that has taken place at the FBI. The House Weaponization Committee also held a hearing on Thursday featuring some of those whistleblowers talking about that rot and alleging retaliation for their bravery in calling it out.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) called out what the FBI had done to one of the witnesses who spoke at the hearing — FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle — and his family, saying they should “rot in hell.”

O’Boyle is a Patriot.

FBI officials who tortured his young family to punish this whistleblower deserve to ROT IN HELL! https://t.co/erjsggDAVL

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) May 18, 2023

O’Boyle was everything you would want in an agent: He’d served in the 101st Airborne, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a police officer before he became a special agent. He got high reviews, he was selected for the FBI SWAT team, and he molded a stellar reputation and career. Then came the smear against him. He said that that wasn’t going to stop him. After all, he said, he didn’t swear an oath to the FBI, “I swore an oath to the Constitution.”

This smear campaign, disgusting as it is, is unsurprising. Despite our oath to uphold the Constitution, too many in the FBI aren’t willing to sacrifice for the hard right over the easy wrong. They see what becomes of whistleblowers; how the FBI destroys their careers, suspends them under false pretenses, takes their security clearances and pay with no true options for real recourse or remedy. This is by design; it creates an Orwellian atmosphere that silences opposition and discussion. We know what is right to do, yet we too often refuse to do what is right because of the difficulty and suffering it incurs.

I couldn’t knowingly continue on this path silently without speaking out against the weaponization I witnessed even if it meant losing my job, my career, my livelihood, my family’s home, and now, even my anonymity. It’s up to members of this committee, current and former FBI employees, and indeed all Americans, to ensure that the weaponization of our own government against the people comes to an end; no matter the personal cost.

O’Boyle said that he’d sworn an oath to defend America from “enemies both foreign and domestic, even if that means sacrificing my life.”

Then he related what he said the FBI had done to him, transferring him across the country. He broke down part of the way through, as he described what happened to his family.

They allowed us to sell my family’s home. They ordered me to report to the new unit when our youngest daughter was two weeks old. Then, on my first day on the new assignment, they suspended me; rendering my family homeless. They refused to release our household goods, including our clothes, for weeks.
All I wanted to do was serve my country by stopping bad guys and protecting the innocent. To my chagrin, bad guys have begun running parts of the government making it difficult to continue to serve this Nation and protect the innocent. But I for one, will never stop trying. And I’ll never forget my oath.

O’Boyle and the rest of the whistleblowers are doing everything they can to tell us what’s happening and begging for help to stop what’s going on.

At one point, as O’Boyle said, the FBI was considered the pinnacle of law enforcement. But now, sadly, it’s become an arm of the powers that be, to enforce their will. The House has to start raking the FBI leadership over the coals with real action over this, if they have any hope of stopping this. They have to purge the bad apples and withhold funding if the Biden team won’t comply with their requests for information and action.