One year later, death of American hero Philip Haney remains a mystery as FBI stonewalls investigation

Standing outside the Ford House Office Building within view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in late July 2013, Homeland Security officer Philip Haney was engaged in conversation with former Pentagon inspector general Joseph Schmitz.

“Philip,” Schmitz said, “the things you know, the things you have between your ears, people will kill you for.” [This conversation is recounted on page 164 of Haney’s book, See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad]

Those words may have been prophetic.

One year ago on Feb. 21, 2020, Haney’s body would be found on the side of a road in rural Amador County, about an hour southeast of Sacramento, California, where he was staying in an RV park. A bullet had pierced his chest.

The initial statement from the Amador County Sheriff’s Office indicated that Haney had taken his own life. The next day, on Feb. 22, that statement was walked back and Sheriff Martin Ryan, who doubles as the county coroner, said a full investigation was underway.

The last statement on the case was issued July 22, 2020, stating that the county was about to receive an FBI forensic examination of Haney’s laptop, thumb-drives, cellphone and personal documents. Ryan’s office said it would release the county’s report determining the cause of death within weeks of receiving that FBI report.

We are now seven months out from that July 22 statement and the silence is deafening.

What is in that FBI report that precludes it from being made public?

Has the sheriff seen the FBI’s report?

If so, what is the FBI and the sheriff hiding from the public about this high-profile death that occurred one year ago in Amador County?

Haney was a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and an expert in the Islamic religious doctrines that influence members of that faith to commit terrorist attacks. He had conducted research that likely would have stopped the Islamic jihad attack by a husband and wife team that killed 14 Americans, wounding 22 others, at an office Christmas party on Dec. 2, 2015, in San Bernardino, California. Just a few months before that attack, in July 2015, Haney had retired and all his data had been wiped from government servers under the Obama administration’s purge of all negative references to Islam in federal law enforcement manuals.

The one-year anniversary of Haney’s mysterious death passed yesterday, Feb. 21, and the Amador County Sheriff’s Office is still sitting on the investigation, apparently frozen in place and no closer to solving the case.

LeoHohmann.com called Sheriff Ryan’s office four times over the past week. We were able to get through to his personal secretary, Erin Scotto, and she assured us she would relay our message and the nature of our inquiry. We simply wanted an update on the Phil Haney case one year later.

Silence.

Many of the people who were in regular correspondence via email or text with Philip, myself included, have been surprised that we never received a phone call from anyone at the Amador County Sheriff’s Office or the FBI. Wouldn’t that be basic law enforcement investigative protocol in a case like this, to inquire from his friends and associates about what type of man Philip was, what kind of projects was he known to be working on, what were his plans for the future, what was his frame of mind the last time he had spoken with various friends?

Wouldn’t that be common-sense police work if a man who once held a sensitive position within the federal law enforcement community and who had knowledge that would make him the natural target of people who didn’t want that information to get out?

Philip’s life was in danger for two reasons. First, he was about to come out with a second book that was going to name names of people in the Washington establishment who worked to suppress information he felt was critical to saving American lives in the war against Islamic terrorism.

Secondly, there were reports from some of Haney’s friends in government that he had received word just weeks before his death that he was going to be rehired into the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security.

Given what has happened since his death with the U.S. political situation, it is now obvious that the Washington deep state already knew that Trump’s re-election chances were going to be smashed. They were almost certainly going to be rid of Trump and his America-first policies. The last thing they wanted was someone of Haney’s caliber, armed with information that would expose the anti-American “see something say nothing” policies of the incoming Biden administration, which many have characterized as essentially a third Obama term [It was during Obama’s second term that national security operatives loyal to Obama worked to erase Haney’s data from government computers].

In memory of his amazing legacy, The United West has released the first of a two-part video series commemorating the life of Philip Haney. You can watch it below.

Art Moore, co-author of Haney’s book, See Something Say Nothing, has also published an article this week on the legacy of the man who America’s deep state very much feared. You can read Moore’s article at WND.com.

As Moore points out, family members and friends who were with Haney and spoke to him in the last week of his life said he was happy and looking forward to getting married.

In an emotional speech on the House floor in March 2020, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, praised Haney as a friend who was “one of the finest, most patriotic, competent people I’ve ever known in my life.”

“A man of absolute honesty, complete integrity, who cared deeply about the future of this country.”

Is the FBI somehow thwarting this investigation? If so, we need to know it. We need to get to the truth of what happened to our friend Phil Haney.

Leo Hohmann is an independent journalist and author of the 2017 book, Stealth Invasion. To support his work and this website, please consider a contribution of any size. Thank you. Snail mail, c/o Leo Hohmann, P.O. Box 291, Newnan, GA 30264, or by credit card below.