On Thursday, FBI whistleblower Steve Friend, testified before the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. In particular, Friend noted that the FBI is “incentivized to work against the American people and is in dire need of drastic reform.”

Friend testified that he was retaliated against after he voiced concerns about its politicization. Specifically, he had his security clearance revoked and was suspended without pay after he voiced concerns about the bureau’s handling of Domestic Violent Extremism and cases related to the Capitol riot.

In protected disclosures, Friend said the FBI’s handling of the January 6 Capitol riot-related investigations “deviated from standard practice and created a false impression with respect to the threat of DVE nationwide.” Friend said Thursday that his whistleblowing was “apolitical and in the spirit of upholding my oath.”

“The FBI weaponizes process crimes and reinterprets laws to initiate pre textual prosecutions and persecute its political enemies,” he said. In terms of reform, it is needed in several areas: “the integrated program management system incentivizes the use of inappropriate investigatory processes and tools to achieve arbitrary statistical accomplishments” and there is “mission creep within the national security branch [that] has refocused counter terrorism from legitimate foreign actors to political opponents within our borders.”

National Review reports Friend is not an isolated incident:

The report detailed testimony from Friend and other current and former FBIemployees that reveals the bureau allegedly retaliated against employees who spoke out against “politicized rot” within the agency by suspending the employees or revoking their security clearances.

FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen also had his security clearance suspended after he conducted Capitol riot case-related research using open-source news articles and videos and sent those results to his colleagues for what he called “situational awareness.”

“Because these open-source articles questioned the FBI’s handling of the violence at the Capitol, the FBI suspended Allen for ‘conspiratorial views in regard to the events of January 6th,’” the report says.

Allen testified during the hearing Thursday that “to shut down different viewpoints is the end of any analytical or investigative body.”

“It sends a chilling effect across the workforce and does not allow for intellectual freedom, which is vital to any investigative body seeking out the truth,” he said.