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Trump’s FBI pick Kash Patel is “staggeringly unfit to lead the nation’s premier law enforcement agency,” according to Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. The Maryland Democrat can boast support from within the agency.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association (FBIAA), along with anonymous FBI Agents and employees, has filed a temporary restraining order against the mass public release of names of agents and FBI employees who “worked on cases related to the criminal events that occurred on January 6, 2021.” Criminal events that occurred the previous year help explain the virulent opposition to Patel, who should make exposure of those events his top priority.
February 21 marks five years since Philip Haney was shot dead in Amador County, California. Parties with a possible motive include Islamic terrorists and their collaborators in the U.S. government. At the federal Department of Homeland Security, Haney exposed both.
In “DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties,” published in The Hill on May 5, 2016, Haney said DHS had ordered him “to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS).” In 2016 Haney authored See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.
In 2019 Haney was planning a sequel for release in the spring of 2020. On February 21, 2020, he turned up dead by gunshot, but the death of a high-profile DHS whistleblower failed to launch a manhunt or produce a list of possible suspects. In the early going, the Amador County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) rejected rumors of suicide, and those who knew Haney, including Reps. Louis Gohmert and Steve King, strongly denied that the former DHS officer was suicidal.
The ASCO tapped the FBI to assist in analyzing documents, phone records and a laptop recovered from the crime scene and Haney’s motorhome. On July 22, the ACSO announced plans to “compare the FBI’s analysis with what we have already collected and analyzed within a few weeks after receipt.” A week after the November election, the FBI “analysis” had not come to light and five years later the bureau remains silent on Haney’s docs and devices. In the meantime, Amador County went through significant changes.
In April of 2021, Sheriff Martin Ryan retired, replaced by former undersheriff Gary Redman, “a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy,” in Quantico, Virginia. Redman told the local Ledger Dispatch, there was no estimated time of arrival for evidence on Haney “out of Virginia.” As the second anniversary approached, Amador authorities told Frontpage there was no news on Haney and that the case was “closed.” The next month Redman proclaimed Haney’s death a suicide and declared the case officially closed. The FBI academy grad had to know it wasn’t.
According to forensic pathologist Katherine Raven MD, the cause of Haney’s death was a “perforating gunshot wound of torso,” approximately one inch in diameter and “consistent with contact range.” Dr. Raven found an exit wound on the left side of the back and abrasions on both knees. The forensic pathologist signed out “homicide autopsy.” That runs contrary to a later suicide ruling based on a February 14, 2022 physician/coroner’s amendment by Patrick R. Weart, the “deputy coroner,” who listed “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound” as the cause of death.
In Amador County, the sheriff doubles as the coroner and the chief deputy coroner is a sergeant assigned to the investigations division. In Amador County, Patrick Weart served as “Sheriff’s Sergeant Advanced,” but no information on any medical training that might have qualified Weart to rule Philip Haney’s death an “apparent” self-inflicted gunshot wound after Dr. Raven called it homicide. Enter FBI senior supervisory agent Simon Maher.
He examined Haney’s laptop computer and two thumb drives and found them to contain documents that were “the property of the US Department of Border Protection/Homeland Security.” In similar style, three binders collected from Haney’s motorhome “were said to contain whistleblower documents” and possible “contraband.” Haney’s devices and 56 pages of documents sent to Eric Wilson at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Border Protection Office of Special Responsibility in San Francisco.
A March 9, 2022 Associated Press report contended that Haney’s death “generated right-wing conspiracy theories,” but had now been ruled a suicide. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) had determined that Haney’s devices contained “contraband” and possible violations of “CBP policy and numerous United States Codes.” CBP “strategic media engagement branch chief” Jaime Ruiz would not comment because “it’s an open investigation.”
The vaunted DHS effectively charges the dead man with harboring “contraband,” as though Haney was a smuggler and possibly guilty of fraud and illegal disclosure under five U.S. laws.
Kash Patel needs to reveal everything the FBI knows about death of Philip Haney and what, exactly, is in those materials the DHS ruled “contraband. ” The people have a right to know.
Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley intends to hold a final committee vote on Patel “as soon as next week.” As President Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.