In the first Trump administration, we saw a host of Trump-loathing subversives appointed to top positions in his government. I never imagined those mistakes would be repeated, but I’m afraid some may be getting through the net.
My late friend, Rich Higgins, a US Army combat veteran and counterterrorism expert, served on the National Security Council as the Director for Strategic Planning in the first Trump White House. It quickly became clear to Rich that there were not a few anti-Trump subversives working there. In fact, to hear Rich tell it, it seemed like the vast majority on Trump’s first NSC staff were actually working against him and his agenda. By Rich’s reckoning, there were only about a half-dozen members of the NSC at that time who truly believed in Trump’s MAGA agenda, while there remained 60 to 70 Obama-era Trump-hating holdovers.
The situation so alarmed him that Rich penned an anonymous 7-page memorandum for President Trump’s attention, outlining his concerns. Rich passed the memo to a top aide to Trump, and it was brought to Trump’s attention. After reading it, Trump reportedly passed the memo for follow-up investigation to perhaps one of the worst anti-Trumpers in his White House, his then-National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, who had replaced Gen. Michael Flynn in that role.
McMaster promptly began an investigation to ferret out who the author of the memorandum was, and eventually fingered Rich, who was then fired and perp-walked out of the White House.
Rich would go on to author a book based on his memo, aptly titled “The Memo: 20 Years inside the Deep State Fighting for America First.” I wrote a review for the book on these pages many years ago.
Now, it seems, history may be repeating itself to some degree.
It has been revealed that FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Bongino recently promoted the Special Agent in Charge of FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina Field Office, Steve Jensen, to the role of Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of FBI’s Washington, D.C. Field Office.
This is a very powerful position within the FBI. A previous WFO ADIC, Steve D’Antuono, would become one of the worst persecutors of conservatives and President Trump in America. As Julie Kelly helpfully outlined in her excellent reporting, D’Antuono was the head of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, where he helped concoct and oversee a scheme to entrap some hapless right-wing types, using a boatload of undercover agents, in a cooky plot to “kidnap” Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The scheme was so comical it became the basis for some very funny viral memes. As a reward for bringing that “case” forward, D’Antuono was promoted to WFO ADIC, where he would oversee the massive FBI operation to investigate and arrest over a thousand protesters from January 6, like the “praying grandma” who walked around the Capitol.
Based on the public record, Jensen seems like a D’Antuono redux. He oversaw and approved some of the most highly politicized cases in FBI history. Jensen has also openly been opposed to Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, as verified though his social media “likes,” where he gives a virtual thumbs-up to someone slamming Bondi and Bove.
Jensen previously held the job of Section Chief of the Domestic Terrorism Operation Section (DTOS), where he was in charge of some of the most weaponized FBI cases, including January 6, the infamous “Catholic Memo,” in which FBI targeted traditional Catholics as potential “domestic violent extremists”, and the targeting of parents who attended school board meetings over concerns related to transgender ideology. He was in the role of Section Chief of the DTOS from April 2020 until October 2021, his LinkedIn profile shows.
According to fine reporting by Natalia Mittelstadt at Just the News, whistleblowers have indicated that Jensen labeled January 6th defendants as “terrorists” when he was Section Chief for DTOS.
Retired FBI analyst George Hill testified to the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that during an FBI conference call discussing 140 individuals who had done nothing more than ride a bus to the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, it was noted that several of these people had made social media posts in support of the Second Amendment and the pro-Life cause. When an agent pointed out that these posts didn't mean they were "insurrectionists seeking to overturn our democracy,” Hill testified that Jensen, then-Chief of DTOS, responded, "I don't give a blank, they're all bleeping terrorists, and we're going to round them up."
Is this really the guy that Patel and Bongino want in one of the top slots of Donald Trump’s FBI – the same Donald Trump who has pardoned virtually all of the January 6 “insurrectionists”?
Why do President Trump and his top people want a replay of his first term?
William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and non-profit sectors for 38 years. He is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc., and has been a contributor to Townhall, American Thinker, Epoch Times, The Federalist, American Greatness, and other publications. His work has been featured on CBS News 48 Hours and NBC News Dateline. (The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)