by Julie Kelly
No one should accept at face value the strange account of what happened to Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), at their California home last week.
Plenty of factors—a wholly dishonest news media, unsubstantiated claims the attacker was a foiled assassin who planned to kill the speaker of the House, and Mr. Pelosi’s recent legal troubles, to name a few—feed justified skepticism surrounding the alleged break-in and hammer attack that occurred in the wee hours of October 28. Details continue to change while leading Democrats including Hillary Clinton blame the incident, without evidence, on Republicans and Donald Trump.
This situation is yet another example of how the public’s complete lack of faith in major institutions is fueling doubt and suspicion. Unfortunately, that level of distrust extends to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a once-revered agency that has blown its reputation in service to the Democratic Party. And news that the San Francisco FBI field office is taking a lead role in the Pelosi investigation offers little comfort that the American people will ever find out the truth of the matter.
The San Francisco field office, like the bureau’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and many other offices across the country, is mired in scandal. It’s particularly true as it relates to the FBI’s cozy ties to Big Tech—and the San Francisco FBI office is ground zero for that quid pro quo relationship. Rather than investigate the nearly 300 Big Tech companies within its Silicon Valley jurisdiction for various offenses such as election interference, the San Francisco FBI office appears instead to be in cahoots with these powerful corporate interests to do the Democratic Party’s dirty work.
Few people benefit more than Nancy Pelosi, who of course happens to live in San Francisco. Democratic candidates and lawmakers are flush with campaign donations from Big Tech; in 2020 alone, Facebook and Twitter—the latter located in Pelosi’s congressional district and the former located just outside its boundaries—donated at least $5.5 million to Democrats and only a paltry $435,000 to Republicans, a 12-1 ratio in favor of Pelosi’s party. Conversely, threats made by leading Democrats to break up Big Tech or hold congressional hearings into alleged malfeasance have been slow-walked since Pelosi reclaimed the speaker’s gavel.
Fortunately, a lawsuit recently filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt laid bare how this lucrative back-scratching operation works. Elvis Chan, a top cyber FBI agent working in the San Francisco office, was in routine communication with Big Tech giants prior to the 2020 election to warn companies of “foreign disinformation” spread on their platforms—and the discussions just happened to coincide with the release of explosive materials found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Chan is named as a co-defendant in Schmitt’s sweeping civil suit seeking to hold accountable government officials working behind-the-scenes with Big Tech to censor information considered hostile to the regime.
“Defendant Elvis M. Chan is Supervisory Special Agent of Squad in the San Francisco Division of the FBI.” Schmitt wrote in a recent filing. “On information and belief, he has authority over cybersecurity issues for FBI in that geographical region, which includes the headquarters of major social-media platforms, and he plays a critical role for FBI—in coordinating with social-media platforms relating to censorship and suppression of speech on their platforms. Meta [Facebook’s parent company] has identified Elvis Chan as involved in the communications between the FBI and Meta that led to Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
Chan, for his part, publicly brags about his influence in Silicon Valley, boasting how he “was very involved in helping to protect the U.S. elections in 2020” by communicating “on a weekly basis” with Big Tech titans “That’s where the FBI and the U.S. government can actually help companies,” Chan said during a June 2022 podcast interview.
In other words, Chan is the power couple’s hand holder. (The Department of Justice is fighting a court order for Chan’s deposition on the grounds his involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop suppression effort was misrepresented.) And there is no indication the partnership will end anytime soon. Social media platforms continue to collaborate with the FBI to excavate incriminating evidence from the deleted accounts of January 6 defendants; Facebook is collecting private messages between users expressing “anti-government” or “anti-authority” sentiment—read: conservatives—and turning over those texts to the FBI without a subpoena.
The Intercept reported Monday that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security plan to accelerate its joint effort to censor “misinformation” spread online. Targeted topics include posts critical of COVID vaccines, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and support for Ukraine. FBI counterrorism agents are being “reassigned” from critical surveillance of potential threats overseas to spy on American citizens.
“They work on an undercover basis online to penetrate social networking chat rooms, online forums, and blogs to detect, enter, dismantle, and disrupt existing and emerging terrorist organizations via online forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, blogs, websites, and social networking,” one anonymous FBI agents told The Intercept.
There are other problems at the San Francisco FBI office. In early October, a California jury convicted a former FBI special agent for accepting at least $150,000 in cash and gifts on behalf of a corrupt Armenian businessman with ties to organized crime. Babak Broumand was the head of national security investigations at the San Francisco FBI field office at the time of his arrest in 2018. According to the indictment, “Broumand accepted cash, checks, private jet flights, a Ducati motorcycle, hotel stays, escorts, meals, and other items of value from an organized crime-linked lawyer.”
He was found guilty of four counts including bribery of a public official; Broumand will be sentenced in January and faces up to 45 years in prison.
Which could explain why FBI Director Christopher Wray quietly replaced the head of the San Francisco field office in September. Robert Tripp was just moved from the bureau’s inspection division (the FBI’s version of internal affairs) in Washington to take over the San Francisco operation.
Late Monday afternoon, Tripp and Justice Department officials announced federal charges against the alleged attacker, David DePape, including the attempted kidnapping of Speaker Pelosi—a confusing charge, considering Pelosi wasn’t home and DePape clearly had no physical or mental capacity to do so. It appears more than anything to be political narrative-building by Biden’s Justice Department to bolster the idea that Trump and Republicans inspired another “kidnapping” attempt. The complaint, signed by a special agent assigned to domestic terror investigations in the San Francisco FBI office, also offers a conflicting account as to what happened when officers arrived and an incomplete timeline of events.
Given the highly partisan nature of the FBI, and the San Francisco field office in particular, there is no reason to believe FBI brass will do anything more than run cover for the Pelosis and conceal any damaging or contradictory facts about the confrontation. Prayers for Paul Pelosi are in order as he remains hospitalized for his injuries—a full investigation free from political interference also is in order. It’s unlikely, however, the FBI will proceed accordingly.
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Julie Kelly is a political commentator and senior contributor to American Greatness. She is the author of January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right and Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried―And Failed―To Take Down the President. Her past work can be found at The Federalist and National Review. She also has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, and Genetic Literacy Project. She is the co-host of the “Happy Hour Podcast with Julie and Liz.” She is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University and lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
Photo “Paul Pelosi” by Financial Times. CC BY 2.0. Background Photo “FBI Agent” by FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation.
