(TheRedAlertNew.com) – Many FBI agents “sympathized” with the January 6, 2021, protesters who stormed the US Capitol, according to an email sent to one of the agency’s top officials.
The FBI released the email in question last week as part of a trove of documents, USA Today reported.
The email’s receiver is Paul Abbate, the FBI’s Deputy Director since February 2021, who served as Assistant Deputy Director from 2018 till January 2021.
The email’s sender remains unknown as the name has been redacted, but the person in question seems to have “apparent connections to the bureau,” according to the report.
Even though the message came from a non-FBI email address, its subject line reads, “Internal concerns.”
The email sent on January 13, 2021, sought to warn the FBI through Abbate that a “sizable percentage” of the FBI agents “felt sympathy towards the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.”
It added that those FBI employees viewed the breach of the US Capitol as “no different than the BLM protests” and informed of the sender’s efforts to change such attitudes.
“I literally had to explain to an agent from a ‘blue state’ office the difference between opportunists burning and looting during protests that stemmed legitimate grievance to police brutality vs. an insurgent mob whose purpose was to prevent the execution of democratic processes at the behest of a sitting president,” the email said.
“One is a smattering of criminals, the other is an organized group of domestic terrorists,” it added.
“I’ve spoken to multiple African American agents who have turned down asks to join SWAT because they do not trust that every member of their office’s SWAT team would protect them in an armed conflict,” the sender informed further.
The FBI’s then Assistant Deputy Director Abbate replied to the email an hour later by thanking the sender for the information.
According to former FBI special agent Michael German, a New York University fellow and a critic of the agency, the newly released email exposed significant issues in the bureau.
“It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t expect already, but I think it’s important to substantiate the suspicions me and many other people had. They clearly are on notice about a much more serious problem within the FBI,” German said.
USA Today quotes Heidi Beirich, a researcher of “hate and extremism,” arguing that the email showed a problem with “white supremacists” in the FBI.
“The situation has been serious enough that the FBI for almost 20 years, has been warning of insider threats from cops. And the thing is, nobody’s done anything about it,” she argued.
Earlier this year, Stephen Friend, an FBI special agent, was suspended after he refused to participate in the prosecution of 1/6 protesters. He was lauded as a “patriot” by US lawmakers from the Republican Party.
What is your reaction to the allegation that a “sizable percentage” of FBI agents sympathized with the January 6 protesters? Share your thoughts and views by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
