15:38 At the FBI, there is confirmation bias and overwillingness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents and action without appropriate objectivity. One of the whistleblowers we'll hear from today served in the United States Marine Corps, serve as a local cop, Garrett O'Boyle, and this is his testimony regarding that political capture. Do you believe that the FBI has become political? I do. I think most people out in the field try to avoid that politicization of the agency, which is good but it's gotten to a point where it seems
16:21 It's like a cancerous point where the FBI has let itself become enveloped in this politicization and weaponization that I don't know how to even begin to fix it. One group that saw that weaponization work against them were Catholics. The FBI field office in Richmond put out a memo saying that violent extremists would find the Catholic ideology attractive and would attempt to connect with Catholic adherents, that extremists would show an interest in Catholic congregations over the next 12-24 months leading up to the presidential election—isn't that an interesting coincidence? And the memo calls for the FBI
17:10 sources with the click congregations to try to obtain information about those folks. Another group that saw weaponization turn against them, parents who attended school board meetings you'll hear today from Steve Friend who worked for the FBI and actually found himself ridiculed at his own FBI office because he too was a parent who attended a school board meeting this is Steve friend Yes. Yes, my colleagues teach me about it
17:53 Americans who were in Washington, D.C., on January 6th who committed no crimes—who simply attended a rally—also saw the FBI weaponized against them. George Hill was an FBI employee working out of the Boston field office and he talks about the pressure that the Washington field office was putting on Boston. And when they tried to get predicate evidence they couldn't get it for a very interesting reason. This is George Hill Joe Bonneville-Lanza said, no we're not opening up cases on people who went to a rally. And I forgot a key part the SSA for CT2 said happy to do it show us where they were inside the Capitol and will look into it
18:39 to which WFO said we can't show you those videos unless you can tell us the exact time and place those individuals were inside the Capitol, to which the SSA responded back. And I was privy these conversations firsthand why can't you show us? Why can't you just send this give us access to 11000 hours of video that's available because there may be UC's undercover officers or CHS's confidential human sources on those videos whose identity we need to protect. Marcus Allen, an FBI analyst who did work around evidence sharing it with folks he saw videos that concerned him about the federal government zone involvement in January 6th here is Marcus Allen Videos of me indicated
19:34 potential problems with the investigation as far as informants were concerned and our organizations. potential forthrightness about the utilization of informants there on that day. That might have some impact on our cases and the subjects that we were looking up, and then just a general awareness overall for investigation as a whole that there might have been some kind of potential federal involvement with the activities on January 6th. And I thought it was important enough that if like wanted our attention
20:15 So much of the good work happening at the FBI is throughout this country and a lot of the rot, The committee has learned emerges out of headquarters and out of the Washington field office. Garrett O'Boyle described the conflict that existed as the Washington field office put pressure on other field offices around the country to engage in law enforcement work without predication. This is Mr. O'Boyle Did the WFO pressure other field offices to keep January 6th cases open or COVID cases? I would say they pressured us to open cases, to some degree. One example that I have personally—I made this—this is one of my protective disclosures so i'll just touch on it a little bit but um... I received a lead about someone based on an anonymous tip
21:13 And in law enforcement, the non-missitives don't hold very much weight. Especially without evidence that you can corroborate pretty easily I wasn't able to corroborate anything they said even after speaking with the person they alleged potential criminal behavior of While trying to figure all that out, I get another lead from the same agent who sent me that lead and They essentially tried to get me into violating policy or law Trying to get people to break the law without sufficient predication is a weaponization of our government. And all Americans suffer when resources are misallocated, when stats are padded following 9-11—the FBI set up all these terrorism entities to look outward at people abroad who might seek to harm our country
22:07 But a lot of those authorities were turned inward against our own people. And the result was stat padding for the purpose of FBI officials trying to convince Congress that the violent extremism threat was more enhanced than it indeed was, and we got critical testimony on that point also from Mr. O'Boyle I encountered similar staff padding or case bolstering. Truth be told, it was one case like but the FBI had me open up four different cases because they had me open a case for every individual
22:44 that I had an articulable factual basis that there may have been potential federal law being violated. Or like on a criminal case, say you're working with the gang which is this case was against like a militia. If you're working with the gang, if you have a case open on a game and you have a sub file for each person in it like John Doe 1 2 & 3 they all have their own sub file or in my John Doe, one two three and four all had their own separate case because then the FBI can from my perspective go back to Congress and say look at all the domestic terrorism we've investigated. But really I was working one case but the FBI could then say well he actually had four so you should give us more money because look how big of a threat all this domestic terrorism is So a lot of positive things are happening right now And a lot of people are coming forward