Describing himself as one of the “most significant whistleblowers in FBI history,” 15-year veteran FBI Special Agent Johnathan Buma was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 17, 2025, as he was attempting to board an outbound international flight. Roughly a day later, a criminal charge was filed in the California Central District Court claiming that Buma disclosed classified information about FBI investigations and confidential informants.
According to a court-filed affidavit, Buma had allegedly sent emails and messages that contained excerpts of a prospective book about his career at the FBI. Some of the sensitive information that Buma reportedly disclosed related to “the FBI’s efforts and investigations into a foreign country’s weapon of mass destruction (‘WMD’) program.” Buma had also purportedly given “authorization” to the recipients to share the restricted details.
During the first Trump Administration, Buma blew the whistle on alleged political bias by the FBI. In a 2024 interview with Business Insider, Buma revealed that in 2019, he provided different sets of unverified information to his supervisor at the FBI field office in Los Angeles for potential action. The first possible case involved Hunter Biden and potential criminal activity regarding the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. According to Buma, his supervisor was “interested and adamant about…transferring [the case] to the appropriate case agent right away.” In the same meeting, Buma offered potentially lucrative information about former Trump legal associate Rudy Giuliani, but his supervisor allegedly “shut [him] down immediately.” The information alleged that Giuliani had been compromised by Russian counterintelligence and organized crime operations.
After this, Buma claimed his work became more scrutinized, sometimes calling his workplace treatment “intolerable.” In January 2022, he filed a whistleblower complaint and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, alleging “numerous acts of intelligence repression.” Buma then explained that “no actions were ever taken to correct ongoing reprisals and suppression of intelligence” and that he experienced even harsher repression once he filed to become a whistleblower. Additionally, he was reassigned from working with confidential human sources (CHS) to a surveillance squad, which he called “the Alaska of L.A.” due to its isolation and uncontroversial nature compared to Buma’s previous position.
According to the affidavit, on October 27, 2023, Buma allegedly printed out 130 classified FBI files, including confidential reports and CHS information, both marked with warnings about their protection. Three days later, Buma reportedly made several social media posts with excerpts of his upcoming book. Along with biographical information, these posts allegedly promoted that the FBI was corrupt due to its suppression of certain investigations and unjust retaliation against agents, particularly whistleblowers. In the book, Buma wrote, “I feel like I have no choice” when explaining his continued fight against what he sees as a dangerously unfair system.
The affidavit also alleges that Buma emailed drafts of his book to various people between October and December 2023, some of whom were helping him negotiate a publishing deal. According to FBI personnel, the drafts contained sensitive information from the printed files Buma had allegedly produced that fall. About a week later, after not reporting for duty and not responding to his supervisor, Buma was placed on leave without pay on November 2.
Shortly after, federal law enforcement raided Buma’s house on November 13, 2023, with search warrants. According to the Special Agents mentioned in the affidavit, multiple documents were found containing protected CHS information and classified FBI emails, but none of the alleged documents printed on October 27 were located.
Scott Horton, Buma’s attorney, denied any wrongdoing and asserted that no classified documents were found in the November raid. “The reason why I came forward is… I don’t want any other FBI agent to ever have to go through what I’ve gone through,” Buma stated. “If the very agency that’s charged with holding our public officials [accountable] can’t hold its own self accountable…things can get bad real fast.”
