(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former FBI Special Agent Stephen Friend has released his memoir, True Blue: My Journey from Beat Cop to Suspended FBI Whistleblower, which includes a roughly 42-page transcription of a conversation he had with bureau officials about their mishandling of Jan. 6 Capitol Hill protest cases.
The FBI wanted Friend to redact the conversation from his book before it hit the shelves this week, but he declined. Because he did, the public can now read, among other disclosures, about a top agent’s shocking ignorance about the basic facts of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest—including the official’s demonstrably false belief that protestors had killed police officers.
Friend, who was suspended from the FBI last year after refusing to participate in SWAT-style raids of J6 suspects, began his book by outlining his personal history. A University of Notre Dame graduate who eschewed an accounting career in favor of law enforcement, Friend’s first six years in the FBI were spent tackling crime on Indian reservations and investigating child sex abuse cases.
Friend was reassigned to domestic terrorism casework in October 2021, and he became disillusioned with his work soon thereafter.
In his book, Friend expressed particular concern that J6 cases were being directed from the FBI’s offices in Washington D.C., and not the respective field offices where the investigations were supposed to be taking place.
“This is a radical deviation from FBI DIOG rules … For all intents and purposes, special agents in Washington, DC, were working as case agents in absentia,” he wrote.
Friend concluded that FBI officials in D.C. were trying to inflate domestic terrorism statistics.
“The cases were designated for investigation by all fifty-six field offices. I questioned the logic of this decision until now,” he said.
“FBI Headquarters and the Washington Field Office were still running the cases … And the artificial surge in overall domestic terrorism cases around the country backfilled statistical support for a political message ‘that domestic terrorism rooted in white supremacy is the greatest terrorist threat to our Homeland today,’” he added, quoting Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Friend’s concerns came to a head after he refused to participate in SWAT-style raids against J6 suspects. He was called into a meeting with Jacksonville’s assistant special agents in charge, Coult Markovsky and Sean Ryan, and stealthily recorded the ensuing conversation—which the FBI unsuccessfully attempted to have him redact from the book.
According to Friend’s transcription of the conversation, Markovsky chastised him for not participating in the J6 takedowns. While doing so, the assistant special agent in charge falsely claimed that J6 protestors killed law enforcement.
“What happened at the Capitol on January the 6th? All those people. What they did there: the storming of the Capitol, the beating of law enforcement, the killing of law enforcement, the destruction of the Capitol. I mean, are those not criminal charges? Are those not worthy of being charged federally?” Markovsky asked.
Friend responded with a rebuttal, clarifying that protestors did not kill police officers on Jan. 6.
But Markovsky repeated the false allegations. Again, Friend explained the truth of the matter.
“There were officers that killed themselves in the ensuing days; that died of a stroke and we were told were assaulted by a fire extinguisher, which was proven to not be true. So, I mean, we can get down into the nitty gritty of each one of the them if you want,” Friend said.
Friend said that about three hours after his conversation with the two top FBI agents—the talk comprises more than 40 pages, and is the most revealing part of the 224-page book—he received an email telling him not to report to work.
After another meeting with Field Office Special Agent in Charge Sherri Onks, he was officially suspended in September.
Looking back on his interactions with the top FBI agents, Friend said in his book that he was amazed at their ignorance.
“I found Coult’s ignorance and verifiably false belief about January 6th subjects killing police officers monumental. How could a relatively high-ranking field office official and supervisor of the Joint Terrorism Task Force be so incredibly misinformed?” he wrote.
“His erroneous beliefs only spotlighted that he was either uninformed about the very cases he claimed to be supervising or he was consuming false, biased news very much like the content he accused me of relying on when I formulated my conclusions about the FBI’s case management malfeasance and politicization,” Friend added.
Since his suspension, Friend has been in the public spotlight. Democrats in Congress have attacked him as a disgruntled former agent with a political axe to grind, while Republicans embraced him for his disclosures.
Friend said in his book that he’s pessimistic about his whistleblowing leading to any meaningful reforms, writing that he believes Congress will prioritize Biden family corruption and Big Tech censorship over FBI malfeasance.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
