Take a knee, get a promotion. Welcome to a world where George Floyd’s death from fentanyl birthed FBI agents promotions.
EXCLUSIVE: 2 FBI Agents Who Knelt at BLM Rally Gained Promotions, by Fred Lucas, Daily Signal.com, April 17, 2023
Kneeling could be an avenue to rise through the ranks at the FBI, judging by promotions for two agents who did so in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters.
One of the two agents appears in a video for her alma mater saying that the FBI seeks a “diverse workforce” to ensure that the bureau is “looking like the communities that we represent.”
Protests and riots linked to the Black Lives Matter movement swept the nation in the weeks and months after the May 25, 2020, killing of George Floyd, who was black, by a Minneapolis police officer who is white. In some cases, law enforcement joined the protests.
At least six FBI agents from the bureau’s Washington, D.C., field office were photographed kneeling during a BLM march on June 4, 2020, and were referred to derisively on social media as “Kneel Team Six.”
The Daily Signal identified two of the kneeling agents through direct and indirect communications with former and current FBI officials.
They are Sarah Webb Linden, who was promoted from special agent to assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s D.C. field office, and Amy Oakes, who was promoted from agent to lead cybercrimes counterintelligence agent.
A former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, identified both women to The Daily Signal. Seraphin said he communicated with six former and current FBI agents who aren’t authorized to speak publicly, and they also confirmed the two.
Although other FBI agents or officials are believed to be in the group of photographed kneelers, Seraphin said he couldn’t positively identify anyone else after consulting the current and former agents.
Congrats to @FBIWFO ASAC Sarah Linden for graduating from the @DCPoliceDept Leadership Academy - the only law enforcement academy WITHOUT a fitness standard. (Motto: "Leaders who can't follow/keep up." probably)
— Kyle Seraphin (@KyleSeraphin) March 28, 2023
Remember - The @FBI #KneelTeam6 leaders are the #FBI's leaders. https://t.co/FXZVyWdTwp pic.twitter.com/lzZw2WtKesCorrelation and causation aren’t the same, of course, so it doesn’t mean that Linden and Oakes were promoted within the FBI because they knelt in protest. The personnel decisions do indicate, however, that FBI brass had little problem with their doing so.
Seraphin said he was in the room a few days after the kneeling controversy when two FBI executive assistant directors, Jennifer Moore and Larissa Knapp, praised agents who kneeled. Hugs even occurred, he said.
“In the meeting, there was praise for all who knelt,” Seraphin told The Daily Signal. “They were told they did the right thing and did not escalate the situation.”
The FBI declined to comment on inquiries for this story from The Daily Signal.
As for the matter of escalation, Seraphin said, the FBI kneelers were a good distance from the actual protesters. He said he suspected that the agents’ act of kneeling was more of a political statement than an effort to stay safe.
“Both were promoted shortly after kneeling,” Seraphin said.
Seraphin, an FBI special agent for six years, became a whistleblower before the bureau suspended him without pay last year. He first revealed that the FBI’s field office in Richmond, Virginia, was targeting Catholics when he published a document on UncoverDC.com.
In late March, the FBI’s Washington field office—which calls itself FBI WFO—tweeted about Linden’s cooperation with the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department.
“Global and local partnerships help the #FBI protect the American people,” the tweet said. “#FBIWFO Assistant Special Agent in Charge Sarah Linden recently graduated from @DCPoliceDept‘s Leadership Academy, where she honed her leadership skills alongside dozens of law enforcement leaders.”
We lost America in 2020. This is all just a nightmare post-2020. Survive this insanity. That’s it.
