List of FBI controversies
The remaining 15% of COINTELPRO resources were expended to marginalize and subvert white hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party.
[26][27] The FBI spread rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and a heroin addict[28] and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement.
[34] The U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that Chinese agents sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign.
In 2008, Special Agent Connolly completed his term on the federal charges and was transferred to Florida where he was convicted of helping plan the murder of John B Callahan, a Bulger rival.
Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park[63] near his home in Vienna, Virginia, and was charged with selling US secrets to the USSR and subsequently Russia for more than US$1.4 million in cash and diamonds over a 22-year period.
[citation needed] Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá criticized the FBI assault as "improper" and "highly irregular" and demanded to know why his government was not informed of it.
The Puerto Rico Justice Department filed suit in federal court against the FBI and the US Attorney General, demanding information crucial to the Commonwealth's own investigation of the incident.
[69] Ojeda Rios' funeral was attended by a long list of dignitaries, including the highest authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, Archbishop Roberto Octavio González Nieves, ex-Governor Rafael Hernández Colón, and numerous other personalities.
[71] In 2007, an agent working in Seattle, Washington for the FBI impersonated an Associated Press (AP) journalist and unwittingly infected the computer of a 15-year old suspect with a malicious surveillance software.
[80] Wikipedia spokespersons received Griffith's "WikiScanner" positively, noting that it helped prevent conflicts of interest from influencing articles[84] as well as increasing transparency[80] and mitigating attempts to remove or distort relevant facts.
On February 16, 2018, two days after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the FBI released a statement detailing information the organization's Public Access Line had received a month prior, on January 5, from a person close to Nikolas Cruz, the suspected shooter.
According to the statement, "The caller provided information about Cruz's gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting."
[86] On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey announced the bureau's recommendation that the United States Department of Justice file no criminal charges relating to the Hillary Clinton email controversy.
[87] During an unusual 15 minute press conference in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Comey called Secretary Clinton's and her top aides' behavior "extremely careless", but concluded that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case".
[90] On June 14, 2018, Michael E. Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, released a report of a year-long investigation into misconduct at the DOJ and FBI over its probe of Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Horowitz faulted James Comey, FBI Director at the time of the email server investigation, for deviating from bureau and Justice Department protocol, which damaged the agencies’ image of impartiality, according to the watchdog report.
[91] Comey was also faulted for a 'troubling lack of direct or substantive communication' with Attorney General Loretta Lynch ahead of his July 5, 2016 press conference on Clinton's email probe and his subsequent letter to Congress in October 2016.
[95][96][97] Former Secretary of State Clinton, President Trump, lawmakers, and academics have commented on the report's findings, denouncing Comey and his breach of bureau norms, and five FBI employees that exchanged questionable text messages leading up to the 2016 US election.
[105] The Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael E. Horowitz, publicized a report into misconduct at the DOJ and FBI over its handling of the Hillary Clinton private email server investigation.
[106] According to the report, Horowitz found that Comey had a 'troubling lack of direct or substantive communication' with Attorney General Loretta Lynch ahead of his July 5, 2016 press conference on Clinton's email probe and his letter to Congress in October 2016.
According to the memo, a dossier by Christopher Steele and opposition research firm Fusion GPS was utilized by DOJ and FBI officials like E. W. Priestap for FISA warrants to surveil Trump's campaign member Carter Page.
Additionally, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who resigned before the release of the memo, stated that the FISA warrant wouldn't have been obtained without the information in the Steele dossier.
The probe is currently being handled by the U.S. attorney's office in D.C.[116][117] McCabe was never charged with criminal wrongdoing, and on October 14, 2021, the Justice Department reversed his firing, settling the lawsuit he had filed asserting he was dismissed for political reasons.
[122][123] On April 19, 2018, the Justice Department inspector general had referred the findings of McCabe's misconduct to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. for possible criminal charges, according to media reports.
[126] In late-2017, during an interview with Circa, former FBI Supervisory special agent Jeffrey Danik spoke out against McCabe and the bureau over his handling of cases surrounding sexual discrimination, Hatch Act Violations, and Hillary Clinton's email server.
Gritz came forward with allegations of harassment by McCabe, who she said created a “cancer-like” bureaucracy striking fear in female agents, causing others to resign, and "poisoning the 7th floor," where management is housed in the FBI's Hoover Building.
[128] In an additional case, where a federal lawsuit was filed, another agent came forward with allegations of harassment and misogynistic behavior against women in particular, describing an increasing problem of sexism at the bureau.
[135] In 2019, the Washington Post acknowledged that released documents show that agents of the FBI and ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement were using DMV state driver's license photos for facial-recognition searches.
[141] In March 2021 in Keene, New Hampshire, the FBI led a raid, along with the ATF and other agencies, on the Free Talk Live studios (a libertarian radio show) against Ian Freeman (director of FTL) alleging that he operated an unlicensed money transmitting business in the form of Bitcoin ATM machines.
[142] The raid was conducted in the middle of the night and the joint taskforce used Bearcat armored vehicles, flashbang grenades, and destroyed security cameras and windows on Freeman's property.
