(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The DOJ Inspector General issued a report Thursday, finding that an FBI official threatened a hotel worker with a government-issued firearm during a verbal confrontation. However, Justice Department officials have declined to prosecute the official.
According to the report, the DOJ-OIG received information from the FBI that an assistant section chief “exhibited their government-issued firearm to a hotel staff member during a verbal confrontation with that staff member.”
The inspector general’s investigation substantiated that allegation. The DOJ-OIG found that not only did the FBI official flash a gun; the official also “lacked candor” during the interview with the inspector general.
The DOJ has declined to prosecute an FBI agent who “exhibited their government-issued firearm to a hotel member during a verbal confrontation”— i.e., the agent threatened someone with a deadly weapon. pic.twitter.com/G72uimTCdY
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) February 15, 2026
Despite apparently threatening a hotel worker with a gun and lying about it afterward, the DOJ declined to prosecute the FBI official.
“The OIG has completed its investigation and provided its report to the FBI for appropriate action,” Thursday’s report said, providing no further details.
The FBI rarely takes action against officials who are caught by the DOJ-OIG committing wrongdoing.
Last September, for instance, the DOJ-OIG found that an FBI assistant director and another employee who went on a 13-day vacation funded by the U.S. taxpayers.
The assistant director retired before the DOJ-OIG contacted him/her for an interview. The inspector general is unable to compel retired personnel to participate in interviews. It’s unclear what happened to the other FBI employee who went on the trip.
Two months before that, the DOJ-OIG found that a then-FBI supervisory special agent solicited and used prostitutes overseas. However, the Justice Department declined to prosecute the agent.
And according to a 2020 Associated Press article entitled, ‘Under the rug:’ Sexual misconduct shakes FBI’s senior ranks, the last time the OIG did an extensive probe of sexual misconduct within the FBI, it tallied 343 “offenses” from fiscal years 2009 to 2012, including three instances of “videotaping undressed women without consent.”
That AP investigation identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.
“Each of the accused FBI officials appears to have avoided discipline, the AP found, and several were quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions and benefits even when probes substantiated the sexual misconduct claims against them,” the AP reported in December 2020.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
