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Et Tu, Whistleblowers?

There is much to be said of the truly earth-shattering revelation that the Biden regime’s FBI had authorized the use of “deadly force” in its raid of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate two years ago. But while it is important for exposing the truly evil lengths to which the enemies of freedom will go, it is just as important for exposing the true loyalties of those we thought we could count among the ranks of those who were on the side of freedom.

When even the so-called “whistleblowers,” whose claim to fame is positioning themselves as warriors of truth against a corrupt system, turn around and inexplicably defend that very same system, it proves one thing: The systematic rot goes far deeper than even the most cynical of skeptics could have ever imagined.

Rubicon Revisited

Shortly after the bombshell report from Julie Kelly revealing the cold, calculated decision to authorize “deadly force” on the raid of the home of a former Commander-in-Chief, many across the conservative media spectrum were righteously outraged.

Was the FBI prepared to gun down innocent civilians who happened to be at President Trump’s estate? Was the FBI ready for a shootout with Secret Service agents, whose mission is to protect their principals—that, of course, being President Trump and his family?

The raid on Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022 was already widely described as a “crossing the Rubicon” moment for the United States, and understandably so. It was a brazen weaponization of federal law enforcement against a popular former president and possible future president. The fact that deadly force was always on the table adds just another sinister layer to this already hideously authoritarian power play.

Anyone who claims that this is all a lot of noise about nothing, citing such buzz phrases as “standard operating procedure” to suggest that this otherwise unprecedented raid was just par for the course, is not to be trusted. Most simply, the fact is that there is absolutely nothing “standard” about a raid on a former president’s home—the home of a current presidential frontrunner and possible, if not likely, future president—a home that is protected around the clock by Secret Service agents. Those parameters right off the bat should demolish any notions of the raid being anything remotely comparable to “standard.”

(Whistle)-Blowing Hot Air

And yet, almost immediately after the report came out, several prominent figures on the right were rushing to dismiss these concerns and even to defend the FBI’s conduct. Namely, several of the most high-profile whistleblowers are from within the FBI itself.

The first of these was former Agent Garret O’Boyle, who first responded to an X post featuring a screenshot of President Trump’s reaction to the news on Truth Social. In the post, O’Boyle displayed a surprising nonchalance in his dismissal of the report as “a giant nothing-[burger],” insisting that the “deadly force policy is literally in EVERY FBI op order.” He even went so far as to blame President Trump for this scandal, claiming that if he had “picked a competent FBI director, he’d have known that.”

O’Boyle proceeded to attack several of the most prominent conservative figures, drawing attention to the severity of this scandal. He went after Kelly herself, along with former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, and accused them of using “hyperbole and emotion” in their condemnation of this scandal.

When Charlie Kirk rightly pointed out that it is not normal for the FBI to be prepared to go to war with the Secret Service and raid the home of a former president and that anyone who believes this to be normal is “an enemy of America,” O’Boyle declared that Kirk had called him “an enemy of America.” Seeing as how Kirk did not explicitly name anyone in his original post, O’Boyle’s rush to take offense to Kirk’s comments is tantamount to a confession, confirming that he does indeed support the FBI in this matter, rather than an attempt to portray himself as a neutral, knowledgeable expert.

Aside from attacking a fellow former law enforcement officer in Dan Bongino, O’Boyle also set his sights on another former member of the intelligence community: former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright, who said that his contacts within the FBI agreed that it was not “wise or prudent to have authorization of deadly force during the [Mar-a-Lago] raid.” In response, O’Boyle arrogantly dismissed the expertise of Wright and his FBI contacts, insisting that all of them must be wrong and that he alone is right.

In many other similar posts and replies on X, O’Boyle’s argument, sometimes dripping with arrogance and condescension, mostly boiled down to some variation of: “I have problems with the FBI (and I’m not going to say what they are), but this isn’t one of them. None of these people have any idea what they’re talking about. Standard operating procedure. Standard operating procedure!”

The Dismissables

O’Boyle was not alone in his repeated efforts to discredit the criticisms of the FBI and attempt to claim sole authority over knowledge of this particular topic.

Kyle Seraphin, who has built for himself perhaps the most public image of the FBI whistleblowers (complete with his very own self-titled podcast), also lobbed numerous criticisms at Kelly for her reporting. Similarly to O’Boyle, Seraphin dismissed her concerns as “nothing out of the ordinary” and “boilerplate.” He even went so far as to declare that if anyone should be consulted for “expertise” on this matter, it should only be himself and his fellow whistleblowers, who have nicknamed themselves “The Suspendables.” The group’s X account lists among its members, in addition to Seraphin himself, none other than O’Boyle.

Seraphin proceeded to criticize Kelly several more times in the same day, dismissing the fact that the FBI was even instructed to “engage with the Secret Service if necessary” as “standard stuff” and “not remarkable.” On the fact that the FBI even had a medic on standby for anyone who was “injured,” Seraphin hand-waved it away as something that “the FBI does for all times.”

But some folks couldn’t be bothered to leave well enough alone. The self-proclaimed “experts” resumed their attacks against Kelly in early June, with Seraphin calling Kelly “a liar,” who “has been in over her head for a long time.” O’Boyle dismissed Kelly as “someone who should have stuck to blogging about food,” accusing her followers of having “bought into her grift” and that she “doesn’t care about the truth and bears false witness.”

Not to be one-upped in the pile-on against Kelly, Seraphin replied to this post with the following: “The last woman who called us liars publicly just was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

Although referring to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Seraphin’s not-so-subtle purpose was to suggest that Kelly may one day suffer the same horrendous fate, all for the crime of simply questioning former federal agents who have consistently defended their former employer amidst perhaps the greatest scandal in the modern history of the bureau.

You Can Take the Man Out of the System…

Beyond the apparent about-face of the whistleblowers defending the bureau that they all claim destroyed their lives, and even beyond the vulgar insults and hasty generalizations thrown at anyone and everyone who dares to criticize the FBI, one question remains: Why?

Why would such men, who indeed threw away their law enforcement careers in the name of telling the truth, suddenly choose this particular hill on which to die? There is something to be said for the lengths these men went to in order to expose the truth of what they witnessed inside the FBI, which is precisely why they had built up so much good will on the right up until this moment. So then why would they go out of their way to suddenly blow up all of that good will by launching such petty insults, lashing out at anyone and everyone who dared to disagree with them, and assert with such arrogance that they alone are the only experts that can be trusted on this matter?

Their particularly vile and targeted attacks against Julie Kelly could possibly be boiled down to a matter of ego. After all, it was Kelly who broke the story in the first place; perhaps they saw this as a challenge to their authority as the premiere investigative force continuing to expose Deep State corruption?

Some have taken issue with one particular assertion made by Kelly in the midst of the heated back-and-forth, where she suggested that the whistleblowers and other “former feds and out-of-the-blue ‘influencers,’” are “involved in an op to make it look like pro-MAGA supporters in any way support the legal warfare against Trump.” To be fair, it is a rather extreme stretch to suggest that the whistleblowers’ unified defense of the FBI on this front is some sort of coordinated “op.” The answer is probably much simpler than that.

Assuming they have not suddenly learned to stop worrying and love the feds all over again, there must be a common denominator in their unanimous decision to defend the FBI’s raid of President Trump’s estate. Perhaps therein lies the answer.

Seraphin had previously admitted that there is only one political candidate whom he has ever supported for public office: Pro-life pastor Mark Houck. Although Houck unfortunately lost his primary in Pennsylvania’s 1st congressional district to RINO Brian Fitzpatrick, his candidacy was indeed one of the most important in the entire country, and for one major reason: he too was a victim of a horrendously weaponized FBI which raided his home with deadly force, arresting him at gunpoint in front of his screaming wife and children, all for the “crime” of peacefully protesting outside of an abortion clinic several years prior.

Rather than lecture Houck or his supporters about how such raids are “standard operating procedure” for the FBI, Seraphin instead offered up his endorsement of Houck’s campaign.

The Only Man for the Job

Perhaps, then, the issue isn’t the idea of an abusive and militarized FBI targeting Americans for their political beliefs or that any victims of such tyrannical abuse of law enforcement may turn around and use their story as a launching pad for a political career. Perhaps the issue for Seraphin, O’Boyle, and these other whistleblowers is the target of the one raid that has sparked this particular firestorm.

After all, Donald Trump has vowed that, if he is re-elected this November, he will all but dismantle the FBI in order to expose and ultimately destroy the corruption that has rotted it from the top down, from the inside out, and from front to back. Shouldn’t whistleblowers like Seraphin and O’Boyle support such a man and thus be all the more outraged at the use of deadly force against him in such an unprecedented and obviously political manner? Shouldn’t they be leading the charge to condemn this in support of the one man who could fix the system that wronged them? Even if they still firmly believed that they were in the right on this issue, wouldn’t they have been better served to just not say anything since their collective decision to initiate this conflict has yielded absolutely no benefits for them and has only served to weaken their newfound conservative status?

It is impossible to know their exact motivations, of course. Perhaps they hope that their bureau will still exist so that they may return in some capacity? Perhaps they too have become infected with the all-too-common conservative mindset that remaining in a perpetual minority is better for raising money than actually gaining power? Perhaps they can’t tolerate the idea of anyone else being seen as an expert in uncovering—or dealing with—FBI corruption other than themselves?

In any case, the silver lining to this unfortunate split within the right has once again demonstrated that you never know who you can really trust. And when it comes to the issue of clearing out Deep State corruption, only one man has proven that he is determined to do what needs to be done rather than squabble over the petty details within the fine print of our corrupt institutions.

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About Eric Lendrum

Eric Lendrum graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the Secretary of the College Republicans and the founding chairman of the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter. He has interned for Young America’s Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the White House, and has worked for numerous campaigns including the 2018 re-election of Congressman Devin Nunes (CA-22). He is currently a co-host of The Right Take podcast.

Photo: PALM BEACH, FL - AUGUST 08: Secret Service and Palm Beach police are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago on August 8, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida. The FBI raided the home to retrieve classified White House documents. (Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

Notable Replies

  1. Many here might know that my dad spent most of his career in the Air Force it its nuclear missile program. And as is usual when missile guys get together, they talk shop. Being young and easily impressed, I was fascinated and often listened in on their conversations. Through this, I learned of three times when the United States came within minutes (and in one case, seconds) of nuclear war. Not through mal intent by us or our adversaries, but through a cascading series of human errors. All of these events occurred in the last five years of the 1960s. So, who knows how many occurred before or since?

    I won’t write about these events as they involve national security even being over fifty years later. But after each of these near misses occurred, tech manuals were revised, launch procedures were revisited, transmission protocols for sending out launch orders were tightened all with an eye to prevent future mishaps. However, I will relate the aftermath of one story because it touches on today’s topic.

    In this instance, when it looked like we were at war by ALL telecommunications indicators, a number of young Lieutenant grade Launch Control Officers broke protocol by attempting to phone anyone in the chain of command to find out if this was real or not. However, protocol dictated the launch sites be in a communications blackout in case the Russkies tried sending bogus stand down orders. At 32 seconds to turn keys and launch, the teletype chattered with the official stand down order.

    The next day, the commanding general of that particular missile wing flew down from headquarters, lined ALL of these young Lieutenants up, pulled out his service 45, and said if that EVER happened again, he would personally put a bullet in the brain of the offender. Say what you will about the general.

    The point of this story is that we’ve unknowingly come close to the brink many, many times. Every instance can be attributed to human error. Luck, the Grace of God, Serendipity (your decide) intervened and the human race was saved. The push–pull tension of protocols and human questioning of those protocols are with us always.

    Now, this article, about the whistleblower saying it was “just” Standard Operating Procedure entirely misses the point of the FBIs’ brinkmanship. This was NOT a standard operation. This event involved two diverse, armed federal agencies with opposing mandates coming into possible conflict. This event involved a confrontation (need I say armed again?) with a former president of the United States and a federal agency designed to apprehend lawbreakers. In other words, this was unprecedented.

    Knowing all of this, the ops orders should have included procedures to de-escalate should tensions have risen to the point of gunplay. It didn’t. So, these officers went down to Florida with the understanding that if a SS Agent unholstered his weapon—for whatever reason, they had free fire authorization. (movie lovers might recall, the gunfight at the OK Corral happened because Doc Holliday winked at a cowboy) Curious. So often, one can conclude intentions by what’s not there as well as from what is IN there.

    Can I say, with authority, that the 7th Floor of the FBI would have been extremely happy if a shootout had occurred? Of course not. But as Sherlock Holmes observed when solving a particular case, the dog didn’t bark.

  2. I’m much more inclined to believe a former food blogger, than former FBI. That especially applies to matters including possible DOJ/FBI misconduct. We don’t live in a low trust, or even no trust society any longer. Automatic mistrust has been the norm for some time now.

  3. Dwelling on O’Boyle’s take on the Mar a Lago raid is similar to asking members of the old mafia what they thought about law enforcement efforts against them. And there’s no need to get redundant about the views of current or former FBI members: we know that the organization is corrupt. After gutting the DOJ of Biden-Obama holdovers too stupid to leave on their own, President Trump will take out the entire top floor of the FBI, just for starters.

    Democrats and their protectors in various places are so obsessed with their scams against Republicans that they’re oblivious to how their side would react if the FBI had shoot-to-kill orders regarding any Democrat.

  4. I’ve been saying for some time that FBI goons are itching to murder American citizens, so why not the assassination of a political opponent?

    That said, the FBI doesn’t want any of the SS–those guys are VERY good at what they do. An inter-agency shootout would not go well for FBI thugs.

  5. But in a gunfight where everyone on one side is carrying automatic weapons and outnumber those on the other side with mere handguns, they might have been thinking they had a slight edge.

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