WHOA: Former FBI Agents Are Ripping Bureau Apart For Wasting Your Money On…

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After receiving a document from an alleged field office insider in New Jersey, which announced a “wellness room” with massage recliners, lounge furniture, and a yoga space for employees, a former FBI agent slammed the bureau on Tuesday for wasting taxpayer money.

Former FBI agent Steve Friend, now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, tweeted two photos sent to him by an apparent insider at the bureau’s Newark Field Office, showing a memo announcement from the Health & Wellness Committee and a sign of self-care “reminders” outside the wellness room.

In a tweet, Friend, who was suspended after filing a whistleblower complaint against the Department of Justice, slammed the bureau, saying, “this is not a serious law enforcement agency.”

“I definitely see a value in activities that could build morale, but I don’t think that it should be done on the taxpayer’s time and dime,” Friend told The Daily Wire. “And when you see things like massage chairs being made available to federal employees to have access to during their workday — as a taxpayer myself, I find that insulting.”

According to the document posted by Friend, a Newark Wellness Committee volunteer issued the memo citing the mission statement and how to improve the bureau’s so-called culture of excellence to maintain the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of current and retired employees.

“The Wellness Committee seeks to encourage employees to prioritize their physical, emotional, and mental health by offering a wellness space, program, and resources,” the document reads. “The Committee will support employees in their development and maintenance of healthy and positive habits that increase their overall wellbeing.”

The Wellness Room will include broadcast equipment for wellness-related programs and speakers, as well as massage chairs, lounge furniture, and open space for yoga and relaxation. However, before entering the safe space, agents are reminded to take care of themselves by taking breaks and exploring their feelings, as well as that “it’s OK to have bad and unproductive days.”

During the pandemic, emotional wellness became a prominent focus for bureau officials, and the program itself follows a recent trend, according to Friend, that pushes FBI employees to be “kinder, gentler,” which the former federal agent noted extends beyond the field office in New Jersey.

The bureau had also reduced its physical fitness standards to attract a broader pool of individuals who typically fail to meet those requirements, according to Friend, which he had to pass before becoming an agent, which took about four years and involved a slew of comprehensive background checks, a polygraph examination, a physical fitness test, and a medical physical examination.

“It is a contentious point, I know, within the rank and file that’s been raised a lot,” Friend said.

Kyle Seraphin, an FBI whistleblower who worked in counterterrorism and counterintelligence for six years, was officially suspended indefinitely and without pay, in June 2022 after he complained about allegedly questionable activity within the bureau and refused to comply with its COVID vaccine mandate.

Seraphin said that the wellness program emulates the “worst and weakest parts of the Woke corporate culture.”

“When the work you do is honorable and rewarding, you don’t need a Wellness Room set aside to gather your thoughts,” Seraphin said. “That used to be called ‘your lunch break.’ But when you hire people whose work doesn’t actually impact the rewarding mission of law enforcement and simply exists for its own sake — perhaps they need to detox from the cognitive dissonance of ‘federal service’ being a federal jobs program.”

 

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