The FBI special agent who penned a scathing takedown column that ran in Saturday’s New York Times, in which he laid out his reasons for leaving the bureau and cited his disgust with Republicans’ “relentless attacks” on the agency, apparently declined to disclose his history of donating to Democratic candidates.
A Federal Election Commission search for Joshua Campbell, who claimed he is leaving “so I can join the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the bureau undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security,” gave $100 in November to ActBlue, the Somerville-based Democratic Party fund-raising arm, to be earmarked to the then-candidacy of recently elected Alabama Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones.
Campbell announced his resignation on the same day that a politically-charged memo released by the White House suggests partisan politics played a role in the decision by top FBI and Justice Department officials to apply for and obtain a warrant to conduct electronic surveillance on a member of then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign team in 2016.
“Scorched-earth attacks from politicians with partisan goals now threaten that support,” he wrote, referring to the “public backing” the bureau “needs to succeed in its work,” criticisms he claimed are “now raising corrosive doubts about the integrity of the FBI that could last for generations.”
Records show that the Los Angeles-based Campbell donated $1,000 in February 2016 to Democrat Karen Bass, a liberal Congresswoman from California. In November 2014, Campbell donated $250 to Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro, a Hillary Clinton backer who has served in the United States House of Representatives since 2013.
“My resignation is painful, but the alternative of remaining quiet while the bureau is tarnished for political gain is impossible,” Campbell wrote.
Records also indicate that Campbell has never donated to any Republicans.
Campbell also voiced his disagreement with bureau colleagues who are electing to keep working.
“If those who know the agency best remain silent, it will be defined by those with partisan agendas,” the Democrat donor and now former agent wrote.
Campbell also dismissed those members of Congress now focusing on “the recent allegations of political bias at the FBI.”
He cited the damning exchange of politically-charged text messages between two top officials tasked with investigating the Trump team but stressed that “it would be equally disingenuous for anyone who really knows the modern-day bureau to insinuate that the organization is plotting from within.”
Campbell also briefly alluded to his stint working as “special assistant to the director,” but apparently chose in his op-ed not to identify then-FBI Director James Comey by name. Comey, who was fired by Trump last May, has been a vocal critic of the president and most recently took to social media to downplay the significance of the now-unclassified memo, produced by California Republican and House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes.
Comey once again took to Twitter to praise Campbell, shortly after his protege’s column appeared on the New York Times website.
“Special Agent Josh Campbell will be missed at the FBI, but his voice is an important addition to the national conversation,” Comey tweeted on Friday night, linking to the online version of Campbell’s op-ed and tagging Campbell’s twitter account in the process.
A brief footnote added by the newspaper underneath Campbell’s op-ed likewise neglects to mention Comey by name or disclose Campbell’s history of supporting Democratic candidates:
Saturday’s op-ed was not the first time Campbell has taken his thoughts public in a major newspaper.
Joshua Campbell via JoshuaCampbell.org 
