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Doug Truax: Welcome to the First Riight Podcast, a weekly conservative news show brought to you by Restoration of America. I'm Doug Truax, founder and president of Restoration of America. Today we were blessed to have FBI whistleblower, Steve Friend, a brave patriot who's exposing politicization of the FBI against conservative Americans. Hi Steve. Welcome to the show.

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Steve Friend: Thank you very much for having me.

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Doug Truax: All right, so before we get into details, just give the audience a quick overview of, you know, what drove you to go to the  FBI and your career and things like that.

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Steve Friend: Well, I was a police officer in Savannah, Georgia for a number of years. Eventually applied and was taken on by the FBI in 2014 because of my law enforcement background, I was assigned to Indian reservation work in northwest Iowa, northeast Nebraska for the first seven years of my career, which is really great. It's a small niche in the fbi. Got a chance to do a lot of case work, opened up about 200 cases, arrested, about 150 violent criminals, eventually transferred to Florida in the summer of 2021 with the understanding that I was gonna be working child exploitation, human trafficking cases. But after a couple months was reassigned to work domestic terrorism issues on the joint terrorism task force. And, and that point is when I was introduced to the January 6th investigations and, and some of the, the rule violations that have been going on with the fbi.

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Doug Truax: Yeah, so get into that a little bit more though. So what were you starting to see that really drove you to the point, I mean, you get there, you got good intentions about everything, you know, I, it's not a perfect organization, but I'm sure you had, you know, a favorable view of the FBI and then you start seeing certain things and then it drives you to this point. So help us understand what it was you were looking at that got you to the, got you to this point.

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Steve Friend: Well, the FBI has a rule book, essentially. It's called the diag, the Domestic Investigation Operations Guide. And it sort of spells out how to carry an investigation forward. I was very familiar with it, having done all the case work that I've done before, and that by, if you follow those rules, January 6th should be one case from Washington DC run by those agents. And if they need work done in the field, they would cut leads, essentially request work to be done by other agents, but the decision was made instead to open up separate cases for each individual person and spread those cases around the country and to assign them to the offices where those individuals lived. That is within the rules of the fbi. It's very atypical. But once that decision was made, the agents that had those cases and the offices that had those cases were solely responsible for bringing those cases forward.

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When I started to look at the January 6th cases though, and talking to my colleagues who had been doing it for a number of months, they were answering to Washington DC even though they were the case agents on those cases. So the question I asked was, why, what's the benevolent, benign reason for that? And they were told that it was to get buy-in from the field. And, and that could mean one thing being that the FBI doesn't believe its workforce is capable of taking on cases with the great gusto that's necessary unless their name's on it, which is kind of hollow. And the other reason could be because the FBI wanted each individual field office to meet its predetermined metrics on domestic terrorism for the year and create a statistical narrative that makes it look like domestic terrorism is on the rise around the country, when really all of those case numbers are stemming from one four hour incident at the capitol on January 6th, 2021.

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Doug Truax: So talk to that a little bit more in terms of this, it, it looks like this effort to inflate numbers around domestic terrorism. Like how does that, what does that look like typically in, you know, before January 6th and what is happening now that is, is starting to skew it at least as much as you know?

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Steve Friend: Well, in my experience, and, and I think anybody who's, who's a consumer of the news knows that the, the demand for domestic terrorism vastly outstripped to supply. I think that the, the focus on national security since September 11th has transitioned from potential threats to the homeland abroad to then transition to potential homegrown terrorists with sympathies to potential outside threats. And now we're digging into homegrown domestic terrorism, which have a certain ideology which is convenient for the administration that tends to be in ruling power. And in this case, they're pinning that on domestic terrorism of white nationalism. But if you actually examine the, the, the number of cases that are righteous versus all the cases that are sending from January 6th, which again should be one case, but is now a thousand if not Growing to 2000 cases, it just creates this false dynamic. It moves the Overton window over to the point where now we're saying half the country that votes for a particular candidate for president is a potential terrorist.

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Doug Truax: Yeah, yeah. So it looks like, so what is happening then is typically to your point, there's a lot of like decentralization based on geographies for the fbi, you know, makes sense, right? If the case happened here, this office handles it, things like that. But if you get to this place, we're the people that are overly politicized at the top of the FBI and out in DC and they want to drive this narrative that all the domestic terror is increasing so they can use it politically. This is the way to do it. You just get together and say, Hey, why don't we spread this out and just make all these new numbers, and then it supports what we're after, right. That's what's going on.

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Steve Friend: Yes. And, and the FBI has the reputation of being the, you know, the uniform aggregator of all statistics around the country are pertaining to crime. And it has that, you know, that FBI logo on there that gives it their righteous, you know, label. So everybody takes it with, you know, without having any sort of skepticism that, that anybody that's parroting those STA stats is, you know, taking them in good faith and that they're honest and, and in fact they're, they're really not. They're manipulative and they're creating this false impression and it, it's, it's just not honest. And, and folks need to be aware of

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Doug Truax: It. Yeah, absolutely. And, and so sad to watch this happen, you know, when I grew up and when you were growing up, everybody's like, oh, you know, the FBI integrity, we feel we felt good about it, but the longer this kind of stuff goes on, it's like you said, half the country for sure is going, what the heck has happened here? And the trust in the organization in general, it's getting to a really low level. And so I don't, you know, who knows what the future of portends here for the fbi, but, but this is really tough stuff. And also, I was gonna ask you about, you know, we watched these, these SWAT style raids on these, you know, Roger Stone and obviously Mar-a-Lago, but then just people that are just out there associated with January 6th and like possible misdemeanors and entire FBI SWAT looking team shows up at their house and does a raid. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Does what's the, what's the take over there at the FBI amongst the people you've talked to that, don't they see that that's just completely over the top?

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Steve Friend: Yes, and it's, it is derivative of a couple factors. One, I was on a SWAT team when I was in my assignment at the Omaha division, so I did for five years. I'm a believer in the, in in swat. I, I think it's a, a good tool in the, the tool belt for law enforcement, but the FBI's, a professional law enforcement organization prides itself on using the least amount of force necessary to bring somebody into custody safely. What's gone on though with these January 6th individuals and, and with folks, you know, that were preying outside of abortion clinics and when we're being arrested is the punishment is the process now at this point. So you can, there's a subjective spectrum for when it's appropriate to use swat, but it's pretty loose. You can, you can sort of contrive a way to use it. And I think that that's being used as a weaponization.

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And, and I also think that there's pressure to use SWAT because there's a, there's budgets attached to it. If, if it's a tool you have and you're not using it, your budget gets cut. And then, and the FBI is also fond of, of bringing everything that it possibly can to bear. You know, we'd rather have it, not need it than need it not have it. So, so many times on these arrests you'll see, you know, 30 agents when four would suffice just because, you know, we, we want to have that, that resource available if it's there. And a lot of these agents are brand new, they're probationary agents and they have to check the box on certain things in order to be, you know, a alpha probation and a regular agent. And if you work in a skiff and you work in national security and counterintelligence, you're just not gonna have the opportunity to participate in a lot of arrests. So a lot of times when there is an arrest, a lot of these new folks jump all over it and they're just walking around with their blueray coat or their, their brand new kit and that, and that's why whenever I see these videos, you can tell who the new agents are because they have the brand new kits that have no dust on 'em or anything like that, hasn't been sitting in the back seat of a car for very long.

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Doug Truax: Right, right. It's like at the end of the football game when they bring everybody and it hasn't played all season, right. It's like, ah, let those, let those guys, they get on the field. Right. So, but that's, that's interesting. Yeah. Right. So that, but that's a great point. I mean, I, I, I remember this before all this politicization happened that it was part of, with the fbi, it's like they were, you guys were always good about not losing any agents, you know, and, and operations because of this concept right here, here just, you know, you got the stuff, bring it with you, make sure there's no situation where you feel outgunned or whatever else. And so, but that was all well and good when it was just like, Hey, they're going after the criminals and that's important. But then you get into this politicization thing and they keep doing this, what they're doing, it turns into it makes everybody really nervous, like, what are these guys up to?

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So it's, it's totally get the concept, but yeah, using it this way is, is is scary stuff. And I was gonna ask you too about, about the January 6th in general. So, you know, we're kind of watching things, looking as much video as we can and stuff, and you see, so you see people being let through barricades and people say, Hey, you know, come over this way and go in here. And then there's the Ray Eps thing, and I mean, what, what's your take on the actual day and, and what you know about it now and, and as, as your thinking changed, as time has gone on based on some new evidence that maybe you're seeing?

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Steve Friend: Well, I've had conversations with some people that who were there and, and really their, their futures in jeopardy and, and worse for people that were not even entering the building as we found out a week ago, there's gonna be another thousand cases coming forward from the doj. They're gonna charge folks that were standing on the lawn outside the capitol. And, and I think that releasing the 14,000 hours of surveillance footage and allowing essentially a, you know, we're gonna crowdsource watching that, I don't think any individual's gonna be able to sit down and watch it all. But, but I think that a lot of insight as to what went on that day will, will come out and, and certainly it's the people's house. We should have access to that. That's not a, a security issue. Nobody's under any delusions that the, the, the US Capitol is not under surveillance at all times from all angles.

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And, and in talking to folks, you know, who, who were there and, and got permission from police officers to walk in it, it's, it's definitely, it, it raises my, my spider senses quite a bit. You know, I was on the, the take down aspect of the Gretchen Whitmer case and, and I saw the Venn diagram of that case as it's come out with a lot of overlap with the January 6th case. So I, I think that, you know, sunlight is the best disinfectant. There needs to be radical transparency with this. If it's the largest and most important case in the history of the fbi, as leadership has continued to hammer home in the media, then, then the full show should be seen. We should pull the curtain back. America should see, you know, all the details of it so we can all, you know, inform an in intelligent and, and informed decision on that's what's right. We went on that day.

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Doug Truax: That's right. That's so true about so much of what's going on in our country. We just need transparency. You know, we're not gonna take anybody's word for it right now, it's just the time we're in, in this country. You just gotta lay it all out there, especially if you think it's that important, like what you just said. It's just, they gotta put it out there. So. Well, hey, you know, I, I can speak on behalf of our audience. Thank you so much for your bravery and your courage in doing this. I understand you're still technically with the fbi but not getting paid. Is that right? How's that working right now?

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Steve Friend: Yes. Technical, I'm indefinitely suspended. My security clearance was suspended. They're doing an investigation, which from what and speaking to my attorneys, it's basically a process where they drag it out as long as as possible in the hope that you'll resign. My security clearance was suspended for, for basically raising the alarm on January 6th. And then also they told me that I improperly accessed the employee handbook. So it's securing whistleblower protection laws by weaponizing the security clearance revocation process. So that's an whole nother issue for maybe the new upcoming church committee to look at. Yeah. When they, when they finally convene.

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Doug Truax: Yeah. Yeah. Well, like you said a minute ago too, it's gonna be, I think your role going forward is gonna be even more important because like we see what you said, there's a thousand people standing on the lawn on January 6th that they're gonna come after, so this is only gonna get worse going forward. So really appreciate what you're doing. Is there someplace we could go to like help fund your deal? Like is a website or anything you got working?

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Steve Friend: Yeah, right now, you know, I've, I've sort of pooled my, my intellectual resources with Kyle Serafin, who's the, who's the other outspoken FBI whistleblower and a few others who have been anonymous. And we have opened up a, a Gs send go for folks who want to contribute. And all those go to wi other whistleblowers, not myself, we're collecting. And that's Kyle Seraphins Gs Send go page and people can follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter at real, Steve Friend, I'm on through social at real underscore Steve Friend, but it looks like I might be shadow banned on Twitter, so you might have to go directly to my page to see the content.

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Doug Truax: Shocking. Shocking. Well, you know, I think that's so important. I, I bring that up with giving you some, getting, getting you and the other guys some money because you know, often in this world we're living in, it just does come down to you get canceled. They come after you, you take, they take away your livelihood, right? And that's, that's a brutal thing to go through with, you know, you got a family, you got all these things, we all have our responsibilities. So it's super important that if people are brave like you and great patriots love the country more than you love anything else at this point in terms of your career, you come forward. The rest of us have gotta step up and, and help you get through it, and there will be a better day. Because being on side of truth is always better than anything else, man. So appreciate all you're doing and you hang in there, Steve, and we'll keep watching. Okay?

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Steve Friend: I will won't give up the fight ever, ever. God bless you.

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Doug Truax: All right. God bless you. All right. That's our show for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and for supporting conservative media. Don't ever forget that by working together and staying diligent, we conservatives can bring our country back to true greatness. Until next week, let's all keep praying that God will continue to bless America

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