By Steve Neavling
Before Jeffrey B. Veltri was promoted to special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami Field Office earlier this year, top bureau officials ordered him to remove special media posts critical of former President Trump, a whistleblower told Congress, The Washington Times reports.
In a disclosure to the House Judiciary Committee, the whistleblower said Veltri was “adamantly and vocally anti-Trump” and that among the officials who directed him to scrub his Facebook page were FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Deputy Director Paul Abbate and Executive Assistant Director Jennifer Moore.
“The home of President Donald Trump is located in the area of responsibility of the Miami Field Office. It was well known that Veltri was adamantly and vocally Anti-Trump,” the disclosure said. “Wray, Abbate and Moore wanted to ensure that Veltri appeared non-political, Veltri was ordered to remove all of his Facebook and Social media posts that were Anti-Trump.”
The whistleblower further alleged that FBI leaders weren’t worried about Veltri’s “bias against Trump,” but whether “information related to Veltri’s political bias can be removed from the public domain.”
According to the whistleblower, Veltri, who served as acting deputy assistant director of the bureau’s security division until March, was previously responsible for the suspension of agents’ security clearances if they appeared to be a “right-wing radical.”
Veltri joined the bureau in 2002 and has held several leadership positions since.
Before joining the FBI, he was a public defender with the Broward County Public Defender’s Office in Florida. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of South Florida and a law degree from Widener University School of Law in Delaware.
