As an FBI surveillance employee, Ray Tahir spent the last decade tailing Muslims in counterterrorism cases. Among the investigations whose surveillance Tahir led were those of the charity Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Texas and North Carolina’s Daniel Patrick Boyd, who with others was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to commit murder, maiming, and kidnapping overseas. Both FBI cases had their critics. The American Civil Liberties Union described the prosecution of Holy Land Foundation as “discriminatory enforcement of counterterrorism laws.” In the Boyd case, as in other informant-led FBI stings, there are questions about whether the men convicted would have done anything at all were it not for the FBI’s involvement. As the FBI targeted Muslims in the United States following the 9/11 attacks, Tahir was among the front-line employees who made some of these cases possible. Now, he alleges, he has become a target himself. On May 11, 2012, Tahir was at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., fighting to keep his $78,000-per-year job. A 26-year FBI veteran, Tahir was a member of the Mobile Surveillance Team, a special unit that monitors suspects of espionage and terrorism. Tahir, who had been called for a hearing at the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, was accused of making personal charges on his covert credit card, unauthorized gasoline purchases, and lack of candor. He had been placed on suspension pending the hearing. The FBI employee had admitted to his supervisors that he made more than 200 personal charges during a four-year period, many of them for groceries at stores like Harris Teeter and Food Lion. He ran up a balance of $10,000, which he’d begun to pay back by the time he was called to headquarters; he blamed the charges on personal financial troubles. But Tahir denied the unauthorized gasoline purchases and maintained that he had been candid while he was under investigation, though he did admit that he changed the address where the card’s statements were to be sent in order to hide his personal spending from supervisors. Nevertheless, Tahir thought that if he admitted to the credit card purchases, explained the circumstances, and apologized, he’d walk away with a suspension. He knew other FBI employees had received reprimands or suspensions for similar transgressions. Five minutes into his hearing, Tahir was recounting his FBI career to the woman who was his judge and jury — Candice M. Will, the assistant director for the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

As Tahir recounted his work at the FBI, including eight years in Dallas, where he was involved in the investigation of the Holy Land Foundation, Will suddenly cut him off. “What kind of name is Tahir?” she asked. “It’s Turkish, ma’am.” Tahir then continued to describe his career. After Dallas, he moved to North Carolina, where he established another Mobile Surveillance Team unit and was responsible for surveillance of Boyd and his alleged co-conspirators. During the hearing, Will expressed frustration that Tahir attempted to minimize, in her view, what he’d done. Tahir explained that he never submitted the personal charges for reimbursement from the government; those charges simply piled up on the card. “The charges will exceed the amount you’re reimbursed when you’re putting personal charges on a government card,” Will said firmly. “The government’s not going to reimburse you for that.” “Yes, ma’am,” Tahir said. Tahir, who had been suspended once before for misusing his government credit card, became conciliatory later in the hearing. “I understand I did something wrong. I wake up every day and pray to God that I get my job with the FBI back, because that’s all I know, ma’am,” Tahir told Will. “I’ve sat in a car for 26 years and done surveillance, and right now, to go out in the private sector and say, ‘Hey, can I get a job sitting in a car eight hours a day in the middle of the night for you?’ I’m not marketable.” Will’s Office of Professional Responsibility ruled to terminate Tahir for all three charges of misconduct. Tahir appealed the decision internally to the Disciplinary Review Board, which dropped his charge of unauthorized gasoline purchases but upheld his termination. He then took the case to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — a four-year process that took another turn Wednesday, as Tahir filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the government in U.S. District Court in Raleigh, North Carolina. The lawsuit alleges that he was discriminated against because of his national origin, and in the complaint, his lawyer, J. Denton Adams, references Will’s question about Tahir’s name during the Office of Professional Responsibility hearing. Though Tahir may not be a model plaintiff to demonstrate discrimination at the FBI — as he openly admits to misusing his covert credit card — the FBI in recent years has faced discrimination claims from Muslim employees and those of Middle Eastern origin. FBI Agent Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, now retired, spent nearly a year battling the FBI over his wrongful termination before finally being reinstated in 2004. Another FBI agent, Bassem Youssef, filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2003, alleging that he was excluded from doing counterterrorism work and that the bureau had a “glass ceiling” for employees of Middle Eastern origin. Youssef charged that the FBI was promoting agents who lacked basic knowledge of Arabic and Middle Eastern culture into high-ranking counterterrorism positions. Depositions taken in Youssef’s case did at least demonstrate ignorance of Islam among high-level FBI officials. Dale Watson, the bureau’s former counterterrorism chief, was asked under oath if he knew the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for example. “Not technically, no,” Watson responded. A federal jury rejected Youssef’s claims earlier this year. More recently, FBI employees with familial ties overseas alleged they are being scrutinized in an internal surveillance program intended to identify potential foreign spies.

Ray Tahir’s court filing and a photograph of a young Tahir with his father and grandfather in Turkey. Photo: Roger May for The Intercept