Tag: fbi

Hackers claim to have stolen data on ‘almost all FBI agents’

The cybercriminal group ShinyHunters has claimed it breached the FBI and stole terabytes of sensitive personal information about nearly all of the agency’s agents and their spouses, as well as people who had applied for jobs there.

ShinyHunters is a prolific hacking and extortion group linked to large-scale data thefts targeting major companies and government organizations. The FBI itself warned about the group in May.

“We have compromised the FBI. We hold very sensitive data on almost ALL FBI Agents and individuals who filed an application with the FBI,” the group announced on its dark-web leak site on Tuesday. It reportedly released a sample of the purportedly stolen data and a screenshot of a defaced FBI recruitment website.

The group claimed to have taken terabytes of information, including names, home addresses and phone numbers. Reuters reported that it was able to find apparent matches for some individuals contained in a sample of the data, but could not establish that the information had actually been taken from FBI systems.

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FBI Has New Details on Trump Shooter, Attorney General Says

Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that the FBI has uncovered new information about the man who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history, and that stuff that we didn’t know before,” Blanche told reporters at a White House press conference on Sept. 15.

He did not reveal what the bureau found.

The comments from Blanche came hours after Trump claimed on social media that new information was found about the assassination attempt and alleged that it was really a failed “Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election.”

Investigations into the shooting have found the shooter acted alone.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 15: “Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA. By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago?”

Trump added that former FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom he appointed in his first term, “should pay a price” for how the department responded to the assassination attempt “and certainly for the things he said.”

Blanche, who was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time of the assassination attempt, said during the briefing that he was with Trump as the investigation into the shooting was playing out, trying to ascertain what happened.

“His frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new,” Blanche said.

The gunman was identified as Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. On July 13, 2024, Crooks climbed onto the roof of the American Glass Research building outside the Secret Service’s inner perimeter and opened fire about eight minutes into Trump’s speech. A bullet grazed Trump’s right ear.

Corey Comperatore, a retired firefighter shielding his family, was killed, while James Copenhaver and David Dutch were seriously wounded by shots fired by Crooks. A Secret Service counter-sniper killed Crooks.

Blanche offered no further description of the new material. He did not say when it was developed or whether it would be released at a later date.

In November 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel said the evidence pointed to Crooks planning and carrying out the attack on his own. Patel said the bureau found no evidence of accomplices and no sign Crooks had discussed his intent with anyone.

The work, Patel said, involved more than 480 FBI employees, more than 1,000 interviews, about 2,000 public tips, data from 13 digital devices, review of 500,000 files, hundreds of hours of video, 10 financial accounts, and 25 social media or online forum accounts.

In July 2024, then-Director Christopher Wray told Congress that investigators had not identified a motive and had found no indication of co-conspirators. Wray said Crooks searched online on July 6, the day the Butler rally was announced, for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy.”

The same day, Wray said, Crooks registered for the rally. Crooks legally obtained the DPMS Panther Arms A-15-style rifle from his father. He bought ammunition about five hours before the shooting, flew a drone roughly two hours before Trump took the stage, and fired eight shots from the roof, Wray said. Investigators recovered relatively crude explosive devices and a detonation device that Crooks had been in possession of.

At least nine federal reports on the Butler shooting have been made public.

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Twin Brothers Acquitted in FBI’s Whitmer “Kidnap Plot” Sue Dana Nessel, FBI Agents, and Michigan State Police — Allege They Were Framed in a Manufactured Fednapping Hoax

Twin brothers Michael John Null and William “Bill” Null, two of the Michigan men a jury cleared in 2023 after the FBI and Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel spent years painting them as terrorists, have now taken the fight to federal court.

They filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan on September 15, 2026, Null v. Nessel, naming leftist Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, disgrace-ridden former FBI Special Agent Richard Trask II (who was fired after domestic assault charges), agent Henrik Impola, former Detroit FBI chief Steven D’Antuono, along with the Michigan State Police and a parade of Deep State actors.

In October 2020, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged the Null brothers (along with Eric Molitor and several others) in state court with:

  • Providing material support for terrorist acts (related to an alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and attack the state Capitol).
  • Possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Prosecutors alleged they acted as lookouts during nighttime surveillance of Whitmer’s vacation home in Elk Rapids and participated in militia training and planning meetings tied to the Wolverine Watchmen and other groups. The kidnapping plot was manufactured by the FBI.

The case against the Michigan militia members plotting to ‘kidnap’ Governer Whitmer fell apart when it was revealed that Chris Wray’s FBI was behind the scheme, the FBI paid for training, Governor Whitmer was in on the planning, and the FBI even had an agent sleeping with the militia leader during the planning and training.

Did you catch that… Governor Whitmer was also involved in planning the plot to kidnap herself!

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FBI Surveillance, Social Media, AI, Partnerships Draw Scrutiny at Senate Hearing

The FBI is not collecting data from license plate readers, it is merely looking at data that is already collected by somebody else. This is how FBI Director Kash Patel explained the use of this surveillance tool during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 15.

“They collect information, not the FBI,” said Patel, adding, “Private companies have and private municipalities and towns put up cameras around traffic circles in the neighborhoods and the like.”

He also said that this is information “where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, basically publicly available information.”

As for the FBI, it “partners” with those who collect the data “on a case-by-case basis and not a rolling access basis.” And he repeated, “We have to use it lawfully, but we the FBI don’t continue to access that on a rolling basis.”

As examples of how this works, he mentioned the Brown University shooting, where “we weren’t able to get any facial recognition on the individual, but what we were able to get based on a Flock camera was a license plate,” which helped locate the suspect who “died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire.”

And then there are kidnappings across state lines, where “we have saved children over and over again,” Patel said.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) brought up Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which has not been reauthorized and has been expired since June 12, but is still in use thanks to the existing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order, which runs out in spring 2027.

Lee’s concern is not that the government is allowed to collect data of non-US persons abroad, which is the purpose of 702, but what happens to the data of Americans who are in contact with those foreign targets and get swept up in the process.

Lee asked why the FBI cannot be required to go to the FISA court for a warrant before being able to query this data. He said that the current system, based on the government’s “internal procedures” is not sufficient to protect Americans’ privacy, and that the past abuses have shown this.

Lee said a query should have “nothing to do with an agent wanting to vet a potential tenant for his rental property, vet a romantic interest, investigate his father…for a suspected extramarital affair.” He added, “These are real-world examples.”

Patel’s response was that the FBI is “flying blind” and cannot establish probable cause for a warrant because it does not know what information it is looking for in the first place. “We don’t have access to that information. We don’t know what we don’t know. And we wouldn’t be able to establish a predicate probable cause because we don’t have access to the information,” he said.

He also said that “what the FBI does not do is collect on U.S. citizens. What the FBI does do is access pursuant to the federal statute already lawfully collected information.”

The FBI director also said the FBI is “responsible for three percent of 702 collection,” with the rest belonging to the intelligence community. He said 702 had produced “terrorist attacks that we’ve prevented, children that we found, on narco traffickers that we were able to annihilate and arrest.” He added, “Were that to go dark, we would have a lot of problems or we would have no ability to trace that information.”

Senator Cornyn asked if it is true that 702 makes up 60 percent of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and Patel confirmed this.

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked about how the FBI uses private sector partnerships, specifically to catch predators. Patel said that the FBI must work with the private sector.

He also said that the FBI is “utilizing the fact that this great information has been collected and sitting on the shelf,” referring to data harvested by private companies, and that the FBI is now “professionally partnered and officially partnered” with more private sector companies in social media and AI than ever before.

He spoke about a 600% increase in AI investment, and then a 605% increase “since I hit the seat,” and credited these partnerships with “the largest reduction in violent crime in American history.”

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FBI Agent Pushed to Criminally Investigate Elon Musk For Asking About Government Employees’ Weekly Productivity

Senator Grassley on Tuesday released an email revealing a special FBI Agent tried to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk for asking about government employees’ weekly productivity.

Last year, Elon Musk, through DOGE, asked federal employees to list “five things” they accomplished during the week.

The email was blasted out to federal employees with the subject line, “What did you do last week?”

Musk received intense backlash for asking federal employees to list their weekly accomplishments.

Elon Musk and the OPM later clarified that it was voluntary to respond to DOGE’s “five things” email and that a nonresponse would not trigger in a termination.

Then-Special Agent Kevin Gounaud urged FBI agents to investigate Elon Musk and said the billionaire violated information security policies.

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Todd Blanche Says It’s “Not Clear” What Biden FBI Did to Protect Trump Before Assassination Attempt After Trump Reveals Chris Wray Destroyed Files

Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday told reporters that “new information” about the assassination attempt against President Trump has been provided to the Senate and that the FBI didn’t do much to protect the President before the incident.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump went off on former FBI Director Chris Wray earlier, revealing that “most of the information” from the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 “was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone.”

“Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA,” Trump said. “This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed. Dirty Cop Christopher Wray should pay a price for the way he handled this assassination attempt, and certainly for the things he said.”

Asked on Tuesday, as the reporter framed it, about “new evidence” and Trump saying that “Wray should be punished for his lack of oversight during this investigation,” Blanche told reporters that “new information” had been provided to the Senate regarding “the shooter and about his background, about his history, and that’s stuff that we didn’t know before.”

“It’s not really clear what the leadership of the FBI were doing in the weeks and months ahead of the attempted assassination to protect President Trump,” he added.

“That’s the same organization that was simultaneously trying to put him in prison till he dies. So, his frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new.”

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Kash Patel Defends New FBI Hiring Policy On Bestiality

The process of reforming the Federal Bureau of Investigation (”FBI”) has proven to be a daunting task for its director, Kash Patel, since he took over the United States’ preeminent law enforcement agency. Marred by concerns over his personal conduct, an exodus of thousands of personnel, an ensuing staffing shortfall, and a collapse in public perception largely due to the agency’s handing of the Epstein Files, Patel continues to face inescapable questions over his ability to successfully lead the bureau. The latest instance of this crisis of confidence came following the revelation that the Patel-led FBI has chosen to lift hiring restrictions on applicants for special agent positions who have previously engaged in bestiality.

Changes to the FBI’s hiring policy were discretely initiated on February 28th, 2025, just eight days after Patel was confirmed as its director by the Senate, when the bureau chose to lower the standards it uses when conducting background checks on applicants. Under the new hiring standards, prospective employees would no longer automatically be ruled ineligible for employment if they were found to have engaged in bestiality so long as the act took place before they turned 18 years old. An internal memo circulated on June 16th, 2026, when the new standards went into effect, explained that the change was made in an effort the FBI deemed necessary to implement a hiring policy designed to consider the context of why acts like bestiality were committed by prospective hires instead of rigidly treating the incidences as automatic disqualifiers for employment. Previously, the FBI listed “engagement in prostitution or bestiality” as automatic disqualifiers as part of its hiring requirements for special agents.

Although the change to the FBI’s hiring requirements policy had largely gone unnoticed, it became the subject of intense public scrutiny during testimony from Patel that took place during an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Patel faced pointed questions from bipartisan members of the committee on the decision to relax the FBI’s hiring requirements in such a confounding manner.

Louisiana Republican senator John Kennedy, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, grilled Patel on the decision. “I’m trying to understand why you did this,” Kennedy said to Patel. “We’re having a tough time attracting agents, good quality agents we all can trust….Why would you even get into bestiality?” he asked.

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FBI Foils ISIS-Inspired Mass-Shooting Plot in Butler County, Pennsylvania — Same County Where a Gunman Tried to Assassinate President Trump

An ISIS-inspired terror attack was reportedly stopped in Pennsylvania before innocent Americans could be harmed.

Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania, was arrested by the FBI on September 12 after investigators allegedly caught him taking final steps toward a violent attack in support of ISIS.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Kramer by federal criminal complaint with receiving a firearm and ammunition while knowing, or having reason to believe, they would be used to commit a felony or federal crime of terrorism.

According to federal authorities, Kramer operated online under the alias “Hamza Al Rashid.” Investigators say the account claimed affiliation with ISIS, offered to share explosive manuals, and discussed preparing for a “mission” while saying he was only missing a weapon.

The FBI had reportedly known Kramer since 2023, when he was a minor.

In 2023, while still a minor, he was investigated after using Telegram under names including “Nikolas Cruz” and “@ShootIntoACrowd.”

Agents searched his parents’ home and found a recording of him pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Pennsylvania authorities adjudicated him delinquent for his role in a mass-casualty plot and for possessing child sexual abuse material. He was sent to a juvenile facility in Oil City and released in March 2026, NBC News reported.

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Chinese National Working as CBP Supervisor at Maine-Canada Border Caught on Camera Swapping Hardware Inside Homeland Security Computers — Then Putting Them Back on the Government Network

A Customs and Border Protection supervisor assigned to the Maine-Canada border has been arrested and charged after FBI agents say he was caught on hidden camera tearing apart government computers, ripping out processors and memory, stuffing in cheaper parts, and plugging the machines back into CBP’s network.

Terry “Jiajia” Liu, 39, of Calais, Maine, described himself as a native of Guangzhou, China. He worked as a CBP supervisor at the Calais Port of Entry, with duties stretching to the Ferry Point and Milltown crossings.

CBP officers are required to be U.S. citizens. According to The Maine Wire, Liu has posted images suggesting he voted in 2020. That does not answer the question every American should be asking: how did a man from Guangzhou end up with after-hours access to Homeland Security computers on the northern border?

According to an FBI affidavit obtained by Steve Robinson at The Maine Wire, CBP IT staff discovered in late 2025 that computers at three Maine border facilities had been modified without authorization. The count grew to 46 machines: 38 in Calais, six at Ferry Point, two at Milltown.

Thirty-nine had their CPUs swapped. Six had RAM changed. Eight had hard drives replaced.

The original hardware included 14th-generation Intel Core i7 processors. What went back in were older, weaker chips, including Pentium-class parts that did not meet CBP specs. Many of those computers were then reconnected to the agency network.

Port Director Theodore Cummings had already told Liu in writing in March 2025: “Please do not move any computers or computer parts.” Stay in your lane. File a ticket. Liu allegedly kept going.

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The Dancing Israelis: FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks

For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.

The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.

According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.

The FOIA release of the photos is notable because responses to prior FOIA requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible to see the Israelis’ facial expressions. However, previously declassified yet heavily redacted FBI reports state that the Israelis are “visibly happy” in nearly every photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by authorities from the camera in the Israelis’ possession, only 14 were released.

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