The DOJ Office of Inspector General reached out to me today and I asked when they're going to investigate the mass violations of the First Amendment rights of Americans by the FBI
If you’ve been following the release of the Twitter files, you know what was revealed last night — that there was a multimillion-dollar effort by the FBI to suppress and censor the political views of Americans in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a conspiracy among federal agents to interfere with the 2020 U.S. presidential election to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election as president.
This afternoon, less than 24 hours after most of this was revealed, I got an email from the communications director/spokesman at the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG).
Here’s what it said:
Hi Margaret,
I have a holiday-season project of updating my news distro list. Would you like me to keep you on our distro list with your Yahoo email? I still have your old Lifezette email. Thanks!
At first glance, I thought it was a mass mailing to all journalists on her distribution list for receiving press releases, etc.
But then I saw the reference to my Yahoo email and a publication I worked for in 2017, LifeZette, where I did some stories involving the OIG’s work.
I do not remember ever getting an email like this from any state or federal agency. But I thought: “Well, here’s a government employee, a communications professional, who is just really on top of her game.”
I emailed back, thanking her and saying that yes, I would like to get DOJ OIG press releases and other information sent to my Yahoo address.
She responded, telling me I would get 2-3 emails a month from them, and suggesting that I “do three more things” to make sure I hear about everything that their office is doing.
She listed signing up for e-mail alerts, following the DOJ OIG on YouTube and Twitter and looking at their list of “ongoing work” so I could let her know if any of the audits and reviews are of particular interest, so she could flag the reports when they are released.
I glanced at the list of "ongoing work” and saw the following:
I don’t care about any of these.
In normal times, these would maybe be important investigations.
But we are not living in normal times.
The revelations from the Twitter files — which included the actual emails from FBI executives to Twitter executives showing demands to silence Americans for expressing their political views — was the shot heard round the world. Nothing else matters until this is addressed.
So I dashed off an email to the DOJ OIG communications director/spokesperson, writing:
Thanks, Stephanie. I glanced at the list of audits/reviews. None of these seem very topical.
I'm really interested in one thing at this point, and that is the shocking violation of the First Amendment rights of Americans by the FBI, as revealed in the Twitter files.
Is the OIG investigating this and if not, why not?
Because she’d included her phone number, I picked up the phone a few minutes after sending the email and gave her a call. It went to voicemail, and I left a long message saying if the DOJ OIG is not investigating this massive violation of the First Amendment rights of Americans, I want to know why it isn’t.
I didn’t get a call back, and she didn’t respond to my email.
Now that I think about it, I find this email from her very strange, as not only do government agencies never send out emails like this, but federal employees almost never work the week before Christmas or the week after. They just don’t. The only people working in D.C. this week are people gearing up for the Congressional hearings that are going to commence in about two weeks after Republicans take over the majority. House investigators have said that the first hearings will be those looking into Biden family corruption. The story of the Hunter Biden laptop, and the FBI’s role in squelching that story, is going to be center stage.
So I guess the OIG’s office is doing something in preparation for this — maybe trying to figure out what the media is going to do with these FBI stories, maybe sincerely wanting to be helpful as investigations of our nation’s premier law enforcement agency heats up… I’m not sure.
The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General is headed by Michael Horowitz.
Its mission is to “promote integrity, efficiency, and accountability within the Department of Justice.”
“The OIG investigates alleged violations of criminal and civil laws by DOJ employees and also audits and inspects DOJ programs,” the office says on its website. “The Inspector General, who is appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation, reports to the Attorney General and Congress.”
The OIG has been critical of the FBI in its reports. But the criticism is minor, and focuses on processes, rules, quality control — as though the bureau just needs a tune-up and all will be fine.
We now know, considering what’s been revealed in the last week, that the FBI is completely corrupted — that it has used its extraordinary powers to silence Americans and to try to take out a president, and when that didn’t work, to interfere in the election by keeping the truth about the Biden family from American voters.
I don’t really expect Horowitz or the OIG’s office to do much about this. We can only hope our members of Congress find the courage to do what’s necessary, which is to bring the bureau to its knees.
Yes, the disclosures continue to be more shocking than the prior. However, I just wanted to say I see Michael Horowitz as a Fixer. Fixing complaints and scandals to make sure the Bureau is never tarnished. The kind of investigation you're suggesting is one that would dismantle the FBI.
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