The promotion of an FBI official — who was involved in the Biden Justice Department’s investigations into the January 6 protesters and parents protesting at school board meetings —  to lead the bureau’s Washington, D.C. field office is being denounced by a group of “cancelled” ex-FBI agents as an act of “betrayal.” 

The self-styled “Suspendables,” who consider themselves whistleblowers, claim they lost their jobs for reasons that include refusal to participate in the January 6 investigation or to follow federal vaccine mandates. They are enraged that the bureau has promoted Steven J. Jensen to run its Washington, D.C. office — a move they see as evidence of the “Deep State” in action. 

“The new management seems to have prioritized image over action. They relied on people within the FBI instead of those with significant and vested interests in seeing the agency remove the dangerous parts,” a former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, told The New York Sun.

In 2021, Mr. Jensen was the section chief of the FBI Domestic Terrorism Operations Section in Washington, D.C., when the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol broke out, and he was soon in the middle of the Justice Department’s efforts to vigorously prosecute those involved in the unrest. In 2021, Mr. Jensen was also involved in the establishment of a reporting system meant to monitor violent incidents at school board meetings for evidence of domestic terrorism. 

Much has changed since early 2021, when Trump supporters who’d protested at the Capitol on January 6 or claimed the 2020 election was stolen argued they were being treated like violent extremists. Those investigations and prosecutions have since been criticized as heavy-handed and partisan.

Since Mr. Trump’s return to power, his administration has moved aggressively to purge the Justice Department and FBI or prosecutors and agents who were involved in the January 6 and other “partisan” investigations. But Mr. Jensen was not one of the G-Men shown the door.

He has, in the minds of January 6 protesters and FBI critics alike, come to epitomize the bureau’s weaponized partisanship. 

“They actually promoted one of our tormentors,” wrote January 6th protester Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who was photographed resting his feet atop a desk in Speaker Pelosi’s offices, on X.

“We were promised they would tear it down, start from scratch.  The traitors are being rewarded for what they did to us,” he added. Mr. Barnett was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his role in the January 6 protest. He was released in January when Mr. Trump pardoned him and some 1,500 other January 6 defendants.

“Either they didn’t know Jensen was a J6 warlord, or they did know and thought we wouldn’t notice. Either way, it’s a terrible look for ‘the most transparent FBI ever,’” wrote a former FBI agent and “suspendable,” Phil Kennedy, on X.

Mr. Seraphin, who said he was forced out of the bureau for refusing to adhere to federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates, among other things, pointed to the 2023 congressional testimony of former FBI intelligence analyst and fellow “suspendable” George Hill as evidence of Mr. Jensen’s January 6th bias. 

Mr. Hill claimed that during a 2021 conference call about the January 6 investigation Mr. Jensen said “I don’t give a blank, they’re goddamn terrorists and we’re gonna round them all up.”

In that same testimony, Mr. Hill admitted that, “I don’t remember the exact wording” used by Mr. Jensen.

A strident critic of the government’s January 6th investigation, Julie Kelly, the author of “January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right,” surprisingly came to Mr. Jensen’s defense on X, poking holes in Mr. Hill’s testimony after she said she spent the past weekend reading transcripts related to Mr. Jensen.

She cited a 2023 congressional interview in which Mr. Jensen said he was “concerned” with the way Bank of America provided the bureau January 6-related customer data.

In response, Mr. Jensen told Congress that he asked that “all leads relative to the Bank of America get pulled and be further evaluated,” according to the testimony.

“There is NO QUESTION (sic) Jensen took a lead early on in the J6 investigation. But his record, as I am reporting, is mixed and he very likely has valuable information and access that the new FBI leadership needs,” said Ms. Kelly on X. She did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

She went on to call Mr. Seraphin “a known liar.” 

“Julie is materially false and stating libelous material,” Mr. Seraphin said in reply.

Former agents who worked with Mr. Jensen sprung to his defense, saying the “by-the-book FBI agent” was “deserving” of his new position.

“Jensen has the full support of Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino — two individuals that do not suffer individuals who have betrayed their oaths,” said a 20-plus-year vet of the bureau and a conservative commentator, John Nantz. 

“It would surprise me if someone said Steve knowingly violated the law or engaged in unethical behavior,” said a retired supervisory special agent, Chris Hinkle, who worked with Jensen in the bureau’s Jackson, Mississippi, Field Office.

Quoting a friend of his, Mr. Hinkle added that Mr. Jensen is a “company man that does the right thing.”

Over the weekend, amid the growing furor from ex-agents and January 6th participants on X, the FBI’s newly installed deputy director, Dan Bongino, posted what could be seen as a mea culpa to anti-establishment forces.

“When you see something happen, and the entire story isn’t public, and the underlying facts aren’t all public, it may appear counterintuitive to our reform agenda. I promise you, it’s not an accident,” wrote Mr. Bongino on X. 

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.