A media influencer who attended the Trump rally in Washington DC on January 6, says two FBI agents came to her home to investigate a couple of tweets she posted on that day. In one tweet, she had joked that she was “storming the Capitol.” In the other tweet she had apparently responded a troll.
Dr. Karlyn Borysenko said she was out of town at the time, and the agents spoke with her husband. When she got back, she said that she arranged to have an attorney present with her for the FBI interview, which she found out would be about her experience at the Capitol on January 6. The FBI agents, she said, were apologetic, and told her that they were having to investigate a lot of tips from people that “seem stupid.”
So I just had to speak to two FBI agents….who were investigating me over making sarcastic tweets.
No, I'm not joking. Even they seemed embarrassed about it.
The FBI is literally spending their resources investigating individuals over sarcastic tweets.
Think about that.
— Karlyn Borysenko, the modern day Yuri Bezmenov (@DrKarlynB) April 21, 2021
She said she was shocked that the FBI would waste resources investigating her tweets.
“I know that there is no evidence of me doing anything wrong on January 6, Borysenko said in a video posted on locals.com after her interview with the FBI concluded. “I did not go inside the Capitol. I did not engage in violence in any way,” she explained. “I didn’t do anything particularly notable, and I certainly didn’t do anything illegal.”
Borysenko is an organizational psychologist, writer, and speaker from New Hampshire, who until February of 2020, was a Democrat. Her thoughts on Trump and his supporters changed dramatically after she attended a Trump rally in Manchester New Hampshire, where she was able to see for herself that President Trump and his supporters were not racists or nazis.
“He hasn’t convinced me yet but he absolutely could depending on who the democrats nominate,” she said in a widely circulated post at Medium at the time.
The New Hampshire rally made such an impression on Borysenko, she changed her voter affiliation from Democrat to “independent.”
She eventually became involved in the “Walkaway” movement, started by former Democrat Brandon Straka, who also protested at the Capitol on January 6. Straka was arrested in January for allegedly impeding law enforcement during the riot.
I started to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the #WalkAway movement. I had heard about #WalkAway when MSNBC told me it was fake and a bunch of Russian bots. But then I started to meet real people who had been Democrats and made the decision to leave because they could not stand the way the left was behaving. I watched town halls they held with different minority communities (all available in their entirety on YouTube), and I saw sane, rational discussion from people of all different races, backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. I joined the Facebook group for the community and saw stories popping up daily of people sharing why they are leaving the Democratic Party. This wasn’t fake. These people are not Russian bots. Moreover, it felt like a breath of fresh air.
Based on the enthusiasm she witnessed at the rally, Borysenko predicted that Democrats would lose big in the 2020 election.
I think the Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens, because they’re existing in an echo chamber that is not reflective of the broader reality. I hope it’s a wake-up call that causes them to take a long look in the mirror and really ask themselves how they got here. Maybe then they’ll start listening. I tend to doubt it, but I can hope.
On January 6, 2021, Borysenko was amongst the massive crowd protesting the rigged 2020 election.
During an interview with talk show host Dave Rubin two days later on Jan. 8, Borysenko said she was not a part of the group that became violent at the US Capitol that day, and did not even realize there had been a riot until she had gotten back to her hotel room later that day. From her vantage point, she said, it was a completely peaceful protest (like the vast majority of conservative protests are).
“When I got there, people were sitting on the lawn. They were having a great time, they were waving American flags, they were chanting USA, USA, USA,” she explained. “I did not witness any of the violence. I didn’t even know what was happening until later when I got back to the hotel.”
Borysenko went on to say that it was “really dangerous” that the media was casting aspersions on the tens of thousands of peaceful Trump supporters who attended the rally.
“The vast majority of the people were there because A, there was a scheduled event there, B, they were there to stand up and demand that their voices be heard, not through violence but by being present, and demanding accountability from their elected officials,” she said.
Borysenko argued out that Trump supporters have been maligned by the establishment class for years.
“This is a group of people that has been emotionally abused by every major institution in this country for five years—called every name in the book, censured, banned, fired from their jobs. These are people that were afraid of wearing a red hat outside of their house,” she said.
“You know, you can only push people so far before something happens. So, that is how it manifested itself, but for the vast majority of people that were there, they did not go in the building, they did not destroy property. They were there peacefully sitting on the grass chanting USA, USA, USA.”
Borysenko said in her Locals video that an agent she spoke with before the interview told her that someone had reported her to the FBI. She said she wasn’t surprised because “I frankly have a lot of people who hate me especially on Twitter.”
Even so, Borysenko said it was surprising to her that the FBI would waste their time on baseless accusations from randos on the internet with a political axe to grind.
“So what I hear is some idiot on the internet said I did something and that’s what this is about?” Borysenko said she incredulously asked the agent.
The G-man allegedly told her, “yeah basically.”
Because she knew she did nothing illegal at the rally, Borysenko said it dawned on her that it had to be about her tweets that day.
“They are not investigating me over tweets!” she exclaimed.
She said she hired a lawyer to represent her and make sure that there was “no miscommunication or trickery” during the interview, explaining that the FBI might try “to act nice to get me to say something stupid that they can then use against me later.”
On Wednesday, Borysenko met with two FBI agents with her lawyer at her lawyer’s office.
She stressed that she didn’t get the impression that agents were trying to trip her up, and that they in fact seemed almost apologetic about the whole thing.
“I don’t hold it against these two particular FBI agents,” she said. “They were very nice. They were very professional. Honestly, they seemed very embarrassed by the entire situation.”
Borysenko said they slid across the table two screenshots of two tweets that she had sent on Jan. 6 during the protest.
She explained that during the protest, she had seen a tweet about protesters “storming the Capitol,” which she found hard to believe because everything seemed peaceful from where she was standing. So she sent out a sarcastic tweet that said something like “it’s not every day that you storm the Capitol.”
Borysenko stressed that she had no idea what was actually happening inside the building and she was just being “sarcastic and flip about the situation.”
The tweets can no longer be found on Twitter, although Borysenko told American Greatness that she did not delete them. “I didn’t delete them but it wouldn’t surprise me if Twitter did and just didn’t notify me,” she said.
The other tweet, she explained, was in response to a former friend who denounced her on Twitter while she was on the Capitol lawn “just for being there.” She said she retweeted the person, saying “this is awesome,” again, not realizing that anything untoward was going on in the Capitol building.
“I thought it was awesome to see so many people who felt like they’ve been stepped on, and put down, and ridiculed by every major institution of this country. I thought it was wonderful to see so many of those people finally finding their voices,” she explained. “So that was it. That is why the FBI was investigating me was for those two tweets.”
Next, she said they looked at her and said, “‘Miss Borysenko, did you go inside the Capitol on January 6,” and I said, ‘no, I did not,’ and they said, ‘alright,’ and that’s it.”
Borysenko reiterated how shocking it was to her that the FBI would waste resources on an “investigation” of this sort.
“I’m not talking about these two FBI agents. These two FBI agents were very, very nice. They were very courteous, they were very professional,” she said.
“Again, they really did seem embarrassed by this whole situation … The FBI is spending resources, spending our tax dollars investigating people over tweets,” she said, pointing out that “they had nothing else” to go on.
“It boggles my mind. The FBI sent two agents to my house while I was gone to ask me about tweets???” she exclaimed. “How many resources, how many hours does the FBI spend investigating my Twitter? This is ridiculous. They are literally investigating people over Tweets.”
Since the so-called “insurrection,” the Department of Justice has been encouraging Americans to inform on other Americans who they believe might have been at the Capitol on January 6. As a result, the FBI has ben barraged with “tips” from leftists trying to turn in their conservative adversaries.
The FBI agents, according to Borysenko, were weary of the false leads they were being forced to pursue.
She said they agents told her that they were having to “investigate a lot of stupid stuff—like a lot of it is just stupid.”
“It was all very cordial, it was all very nice, but what was so mind-boggling to me about this entire situation is the FBI… How many other people are being investigated over sarcastic tweets?” she wondered. “How many thousands, millions of dollars is the FBI spending investigating … people posting on Twitter?! With no other evidence?!”
Borysenko noted again that that she was told people are being reported to the FBI for “insane things.”
“What they said is they’re getting all these tips from people that just seem stupid,” she said.
As an example, Borysenko revealed that the agents told her about a “suspect” whose neighbor reported on him “because they thought they saw him in a video.” The person in the video, however, was clearly about 20 years older than the neighbor, the agents allegedly told her.
“Leftists on the internet are being insane and reporting everyone for every minor infraction that they don’t like, and the fact that the FBI is having to dedicate resources to investigating TWEETS?” Does that disturb anyone else?” she exclaimed.
Borysenko said that as far as she knows, she has been cleared of any wrongdoing, but was incensed that she “had to hire a G-d-damned lawyer over two tweets on the internet.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story indicated that Borysenko was a member of the anti-Trump resistance until Feb. of 2020, but it would be more accurate to say she was a Democrat until that time. Her transformation from anti-Trump to pro-Trump was a more gradual process.