Rand Paul: Biden FBI tracked Catholic teacher with no Jan 6 ties in 'weaponized' probe

close

Video

Jack Smith defends investigation during deposition

Fox News correspondent David Spunt has the latest on the deposition of former special counsel Jack Smith regarding his decision to indict President Donald Trump on ‘Special Report.’ 

The FBI under the Biden administration spent two years investigating a Catholic school teacher — and even put her on a terror watchlist — based on an unverified tip that connected her to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021, according to a new congressional report.

Christine Crowder wasn't at the U.S. Capitol when a mob overran the building to prevent the certification of the 2020 election, according to findings released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. She was, however, in D.C. for a rally for President Donald Trump earlier that day, and the FBI spent 23 months tracking her for it, the report said.

The committee’s chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called the move an overreach of federal power based on insufficient evidence.

BIDEN DOJ AND FBI CONSIDERED CRIMINAL PROBE INTO KYRSTEN SINEMA AFTER SHE LEFT DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., talks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Nov. 5, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

"A free society cannot tolerate a system in which programs and authorities intended to keep the public safe are instead weaponized against them due to mere suspicion," Paul said. "The records released today show how an unverified tip that the FBI failed to substantiate led to nearly two years of surveillance of an innocent American."

According to a timeline put out by the committee, the FBI’s probe of Crowder first began in January 2021, when an anonymous tipster claimed to have recognized her in news coverage of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. 

Despite an initial negative match for her face and geolocation, the FBI expanded its probe, and, for the better part of two years, conducted physical surveillance of the Crowder household, put her on a travel watchlist, secured a warrant for her Facebook account and even prepared a prosecution case against her, the report said.

The FBI would finally drop the case in June 2023 when the bureau determined that it could not positively place Crowder at the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

"After conducting pertinent checks, FBI found no evidence that Crowder definitively entered the Capitol Building. At the time Crowder was supposedly exiting the Capitol, she was elsewhere in D.C.," the bureau wrote in its closing finding. 

FBI TO BE UNDER HARSH NEW MICROSCOPE AS STEFANIK SCORES VICTORY IN ANNUAL DEFENSE BILL

The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, March 10, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

According to the committee, Crowder’s case surfaced as a part of a larger investigation into whether Biden-era federal agencies used flight watchlists to conduct politically motivated surveillance under their Quiet Skies Program. Crowder's case also overlaps with religious profiling memos used internally by the FBI under the Biden administration.

Lawmakers had previously uncovered internal FBI communications under the Biden administration that, in 2022, had targeted traditionalist Catholic places of worship in Richmond. In the view of an FBI memo, those churches were suspected of radicalizing ethnically motivated extremists. The FBI rescinded the memo after a whistleblower released the memo to the public.

The memo fed into concern among Republican lawmakers that the FBI and other agencies had used religious and political profiling to justify surveillance. 

Those same Republican concerns about weaponized suspicions extended to the Quiet Skies Program — a surveillance initiative that has since been terminated under the Trump administration. It sought to monitor targets who could post security risks, but who hadn’t formally been designated as threats by federal agencies.

Republicans feared that the program created an amorphous gray area that allowed for travel surveillance even without a credible danger to national security.

In one such case, the committee’s previous work revealed that the TSA had placed surveillance on future Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on at least five flights in 2024 after attending an event in Vatican City. Gabbard told lawmakers she believed the surveillance only began after she made statements critical of then-President Joe Biden.

With regard to the Crowder case, FBI Director Kash Patel called the effort a misapplication of the bureau’s focus and resources. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the Quiet Skies Program cost taxpayers $200 million annually.

"This case is an example of misplaced priorities and everything that went wrong with federal law enforcement in the aftermath of January 6," Patel said in a statement released by the committee.

JIM JORDAN ACCUSES DOJ OF ‘SPYING’ ON HIM FOR YEARS THROUGH SECRET PHONE RECORD SUBPOENAS

FBI Director Kash Patel stands silently during a press conference on Oct. 23, 2025, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty)

"When a Catholic kindergarten teacher from Texas can be surveilled for more than two years simply for being in Washington, D.C., without entering the Capitol, without committing a crime, we have crossed from legitimate investigation into political overreach." 

Paul echoed Patel’s framing, thanking the administration for terminating the program.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP 

"I am grateful for FBI Director Kash Patel’s cooperation in producing these records, and I appreciate Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for ending the Quiet Skies program. The conduct revealed by these documents underscores the need to limit the power of faceless bureaucrats who have too often infringed on the rights of the people," Paul said.