Agents in Washington D.C. took a knee when protesters marched past.
QUICK FACTS:
- Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who knelt in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have reportedly been preferred for promotion over those agents who didn’t.
- The largely more liberal agents have been put into positions of authority over agents who didn’t kneel, many of whom have been punished or dismissed, according to a whistleblower.
- The whistleblower, Kyle Seraphin, has been suspended from his position, but witnessed the rise of the kneeling agents and their received preferential treatment.
- Other agents called the kneeling “disgraceful,” saying it’s part of their job to not “take sides.”
KNEELING AGENTS REWARDS:
- In total there were six on-duty agents in full FBI gear who “took a knee” for BLM protesters in Washington and one was recently promoted to the No. 2 supervisory post in the Washington office.
- The promoted agent, Larissa Knapp, praised the agents who knelt, saying they were part of a de-escalation of the confrontation.
- Knapp also reportedly hugged them and gave them gift cards for their actions at the protest.
BACKGROUND:
- The FBI has been the subject of several whistleblowers in recent weeks, including one who asserted the agency is prioritizing political investigations over sex abuse cases.
- The whistleblower, Special Agent Steve Friend, asserted that the FBI has attempted to shape the narrative by reclassifying Jan. 6 cases as individual instances of “domestic terrorism.”
