Garret O’Boyle and Stephen Friend dedicated years of their lives to serving their country in the FBI. But when they began to question some of the decisions being made within the bureau, they were suspended.
After joining the FBI, O’Boyle says he “immediately saw that other agents [and] supervisors didn’t have a solid grasp of people’s civil rights.”
“Having sworn that oath to the Constitution multiple times—twice in the Army, once as a police officer, once as an FBI agent,” O’Boyle said, “it actually meant something to me—which, I think, it doesn’t to many, maybe even to most at this point. It’s just a job.”
O’Boyle explained that FBI agents take a constitutional law course at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and that for him, following and protecting constitutional rights “was most important to me,” adding that “foolishly … I thought that would be the case for everybody entering into this type of field.”
After questioning some of the decisions being made within the FBI, O’Boyle was unexpectedly suspended from the bureau in 2022.
Friend has a story similar to O’Boyle’s. He was assigned to work on Jan. 6 cases, but raised concerns when he was informed that a SWAT team was to be used to arrest a man who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, despite the fact that the man had agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
Friend said he told his superiors, “We should not be doing this. There’s other avenues to do it,” referring to arresting the man. Shortly thereafter, Friend was suspended from the FBI.
O’Boyle and Friend join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to detail the issues they witnessed within the FBI and what happened to them when they started asking questions.
Listen to the podcast below: