FBI Agent Kyle Seraphin (l) FBI Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Leigh Moore (c) FBI Agent Garret O’Boyle (r)
The FBI told Congress it had identified FBI agent and whistleblower Garret O’Boyle as the individual in a Project Veritas video as proof he was leaking, but the bureau had already confirmed it was not him.
A top FBI official told Congress last year it believed one of its agents, whistleblower Garret O’Boyle, was the suspected leaker in an anonymously filmed interview with the undercover citizen-journalism organization Project Veritas. The claim even led some congressional Democrats to urge a criminal investigation of the agent.
There’s just one problem.
Video obtained by Just the News, a new whistleblower complaint, and interviews show the bureau identified the wrong suspect.
Raw footage from Project Veritas shows that former Agent Kyle Seraphin, another whistleblower, actually conducted the interview in question. Seraphin confirmed to Just the News he was the interviewed agent, not O’Boyle, whose security clearance was suspended in part on the bureau’s assertions that he had leaked to Project Veritas.
The revelations provide another black eye for the agency as Director Chris Wray prepares to come to face to face with lawmakers in a new round of oversight hearings on Wednesday.
“The FBI has escaped accountability thus far for what it did to S.A. O’Boyle. It continues its never-ending cycle of retaliation even to this day,” Tristan Leavitt, the president of the whistleblower group Empower Oversight, wrote the House Judiciary Committee this week ahead of Wray’s appearance before the panel.
Leavitt’s group represents O’Boyle and his letter divulged even more troubling information about the Project Veritas fiasco: The bureau knew O’Boyle wasn’t the leaker and did not disclose it to Congress or correct the record, according to a new whistleblower referenced in the letter.
The FBI declined comment Tuesday when asked about Leavitt’s letter.
Project Veritas confirmed Tuesday night in a statement to Just the News that its interview was with Seraphin and not O’Boyle.
”After our publishing of the masked interview, FBI Special Agent Garrett O’Boyle was unjustly targeted and punished by the bureau as this suspected whistleblower,” the group said. “He was retaliated against by the FBI, and his family was harmed by these actions.
”We can now reveal that FBI Whistleblower Kyle Seraphin was our source, not O’Boyle. Kyle has given us permission to reveal his identity as our source in order to stop the unjust persecution of his former colleague. As is abundantly clear by now, the FBI is unreliable and not to be trusted, even when identifying their own agents.l
The tale began when then-Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Leigh Moore, who testified to the Judiciary Committee in April and June 2023, provided lawmakers information about the basis for suspending O’Boyle’s security clearance, claiming the FBI suspected he was the agent who appeared anonymously in a Project Veritas video and who allegedly leaked important investigative information.