Government agencies may be attempting to block President Donald Trump’s appointees from taking their posts by asking anti-conservative questions in background checks, The Daily Wire has learned.
As part of the background checks political appointees undergo, federal agents often interview a candidate’s neighbors and associates. One person interviewed about a Trump appointee told The Daily Wire that an FBI agent asked whether the appointee held biases against transgender people as part of the interview.
“Do you know [the appointee] to hold any biases against people due to race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity?” the agent asked, according to the individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to not jeopardize the assessment.
The FBI’s national press office did not respond to an inquiry about what questions it asks and what would happen if a Trump political appointee said they did harbor certain biases.
In a separate case, a Department of Homeland Security contractor with the firm Peraton asked a Trump appointee’s associate if the appointee “has participated in anything that can be considered an insurrection against the U.S. Government,” a question seemingly meant to identify anyone associated with January 6.
These background checks are being conducted before Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has been confirmed. Mike Davis, who helped oversee the vetting of judicial appointments as a Senate staffer and now runs the conservative Article III Project, told The Daily Wire that Patel should probe the background check process after taking over.
“When Kash Patel is confirmed as the next FBI director, his team should review the FBI’s interview questions of potential federal workers to ensure they are not discriminating against Christians, conservatives, and others who do not agree with woke nonsense,” Davis said.
Trump’s team initially expressed reservation about his Cabinet nominees undergoing FBI background checks, given career FBI employees’ history of using their power to thwart Trump for political reasons.
Even lower-level appointees could be subject to the whims of agency insiders through the background check process. That would be in keeping with other ways that civil servants have sought to prevent the elected president from staffing and steering the executive branch.
A significant portion of the FBI’s workforce joined when much of that workforce was devoted to pursuing Trump supporters for crimes like trespassing on January 6. On January 6, 2021, the FBI explicitly chose to abandon a sting on an apparent child pornographer in Virginia who was messaging with an undercover agent about having sex with a nine-year-old boy, opting instead to focus on prosecuting Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. The perpetrator went on to offend again.
The Department of Homeland Security had federal air marshals following people for years who flew to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, even if they did not go to the Capitol and were never charged with a crime.
