An FBI agent arrested and charged with violating federal law and who publicly alleged that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani may have been compromised by Russia is running for Congress as a “Resistance”-style Democrat. Johnathan Buma declared this week that he will run against Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) who won his first race for the seat in 2022 and won reelection in 2024. Buma also denied that the FBI slow-walked its investigation of Hunter Biden.

Johnathan Buma, who handled confidential human sources (CHSs) for the bureau, is being prosecuted in California, where he was based as an FBI agent, but declared this week that he is running for the House of Representatives as a Democrat in Arizona. Buma was about to board an international flight when he was arrested last month, court filings show. 

A criminal complaint from the Justice Department was issued last month charging Buma with violating federal laws that criminalize the disclosure of confidential information. He is being prosecuted by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Campaigning in a state to which he can't travel

It is unclear how Buma could currently campaign in Arizona, since the conditions of his release on bond do not allow him to travel to the state. Buma was released on a $100,000 bond according to a court document dated March 18, where he agreed not to leave the areas of the “Central District of California, Utah, and the points in between necessary for travel.”

He further agreed to submit to pretrial supervision, and also agreed to “refrain from excessive use of alcohol” in a handwritten addendum.

After reaching out to Buma and his campaign, Just the News received a call from Buma on Wednesday, and this reporter clearly identified himself as a reporter working on a story on Buma’s run for the House. Buma spoke with Just the News for about three and a half minutes before asking to go off the record, and then asked that everything he had said be considered off the record. Just the News said that anything he said from that point forward would be off the record, but that what had been discussed prior to that could be published.

Prior to going off the record, Buma said that what the Justice Department is “charging me with is one misdemeanor count of disclosure… and I’m working on that — to reverse — basically speaking to the AUSA [assistant U.S. attorney] directly.” The criminal law he is accused of violating, 18 U.S.C. 1905, carries a maximum penalty of imprisonment for up to one year, and is therefore a misdemeanor.

Set for a hearing on changing terms of bond

“I also moved to Arizona recently, and I’m in the process of transitioning down to district six — I’ve moved to Prescott, Arizona. And I’m speaking with the judge tomorrow about all that,” Buma told Just the News. “So there shouldn’t be anything I’m aware of that would preclude me from listing my statement of intent.”

Just the News noted the conditions of his release — only being allowed to travel to California, Utah, and places in between for travel — and Buma said that “I’m getting that changed” and that “I don’t have any reason to be in Utah.”

“I’m moving down with my father” in Arizona, Buma said, adding that “the judge is making that official — that Arizona is my home base.” He said that “I’ve already filled out the change of address forms” to live in Arizona and that “I filled out my statement of intent with the Arizona Secretary of State as well as with the FEC.” Buma added that “we’re discussing that tomorrow during my hearing.”

“This pretrial probation thing is very strange, because I had notified the FBI, according to policy, a month prior that I was going on a trip to the UK — so there were no surprises there,” Buma told Just the News. “So I was completely surprised by their arrest based on year-old stale charges that were not accurate to say the least. So, basically it was their fallacious argument that I was some kind of flight risk. That’s not the case. I also believe they were trying to interfere with me going to meet with a member of the press in Mexico. So I think this just represents an intrusion and interference.”

Buma also told Just the News that “I resigned" from the FBI "under duress.”

Declaring himself "The Resistance"

Later on Wednesday, someone using the email address listed for Buma on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) website sent Just the News a message saying, “No comment besides attached filed statement with AZ Sec of State.” The attached statement contended that Buma's "disclosures to Congress and the DOJ Inspector General exposed politically driven manipulation of intelligence within the FBI" and that "these revelations propelled him into the national spotlight and ended his clandestine career."

The “Johnathan Buma for Congress” campaign was filed with the FEC on Monday, and the FEC records show Buma is running as a Democrat in Arizona’s 6th congressional district.

Buma originally created a petition on Change.org in September 2024, asking signatories to “join me in demanding reform to ensure managers who retaliate against whistleblowers for personal or political reasons are held accountable.” Buma declared “Victory!” in an update to the petition on Sunday because “our petition has reached 300 signatures, which was the original goal.”

“Let’s test our strength of resistance,” Buma wrote in a Tuesday update to the petition. "To my 300 warriors, let’s expand our influence. Here, I’m now standing on the front line for you and running for Congress in Arizona’s 6th District, in the battleground. I’ve taken the first step and given all I can - finance, career and reputation. Now, it’s your turn to do what you can and donate anonymously. If you truly care, please give what you can.” 

He included a link to a donation page on the left-wing fundraising platform of ActBlue. Three House committees launched congressional probes into allegations that left-wing ActBlue failed to prevent potential fraudulent political donations, some from foreign sources, Just the News reported earlier this month.

Buma had claimed on his LinkedIn page in October 2023 that “I am NOT a political person."

U.S. becoming a "police state"

The arrested FBI agent wrote on ActBlue's donation pitch that “as a whistleblower who called out injustice from the inside, I’ve already sacrificed financial stability, career opportunities, and social standing. Now, I’m taking a stand on the frontlines — and I’m asking you to stand with me.”

“After 16 years with the FBI, retired Supervisory Special Agent Johnathan Buma has crossed to the other side of the barbed wire to run against Juan Ciscomani —Trump’s personal pick — in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District,” Buma’s campaign says on the ActBlue donation page. “District 6 spans public lands near the Mexican border, areas that have been targeted for U.S. military occupation under executive order. … This is a battleground district in a battleground state — and the frontline in resisting an executive branch increasingly determined to expand its power by arbitrarily invoking wartime authority. This expansion threatens to erode the constitutional liberties Americans expect and deserve.”

Buma also wrote on ActBlue that “history has shown us that authoritarian regimes often begin by scapegoating vulnerable populations” and suggested the U.S. was becoming a “police state or Orwellian surveillance nightmare.”

In response to a GOP-led House investigation in 2024 which found that ActBlue had “detected at least 22” significant campaign frauds, Trump issued an executive order last week targeting ActBlue and calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “to use all lawful authority, as necessary, to investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees.”

Buma also filed a candidate statement of interest with the Arizona Secretary of State last week, noting that "I, the undersigned, hereby declare my interest to run as a candidate for the office of U.S. Representative in Congress - District No. 6, seeking the nomination of the DEMOCRAT Party, at the 2026 General Election to be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2026."

Timeline of Buma's arrest

After Buma’s arrest in New York, the case was moved to the Central District of California. Buma agreed to waive his right to an identity hearing and the production of the warrant on March 18, and he agreed to waive his right to a preliminary hearing in a court filing dated April 4.

The Justice Department filed a criminal “information” document with the court on April 17, noting Buma was being prosecuted for the “disclosure of confidential information.”

“On or about November 2, 2023, in Orange County, within the Central District of California, and elsewhere, defendant BUMA knowingly published, divulged, disclosed, and made known in a manner not authorized by law, information obtained by him in the course of his employment and official duties, that is, the identity and personal identifying information of an individual, who is known to the United States Attorney and identified as ‘CHS-1’, and information provided by CHS-1 to the FBI, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1905,” the DOJ said.

Buma, whose previous claims to Congress and the media alleged that he was involved with helping special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into debunked claims of Trump-Russia collusion and who has repeatedly taken aim at Giuliani while defending the bureau’s slow walking of the Hunter Biden investigation, is now represented by the same high-profile defense lawyer, Mark Geragos, who helped defend Joe Biden’s son during his criminal trials for tax fraud and for lying on a federal form while purchasing a firearm as an illegal drug user.

In an April 17 “case summary” court filing by the DOJ, Geragos is listed as the attorney for Buma. Earlier this month, Kyla Wells, a federal defender in New York who briefly defended Buma in March after he was arrested, told Just the News that “Mr. Buma is now represented by Alexandra Kazarian” — also of Geragos & Geragos law.

His defense lawyers did not respond to an emailed request for comment from Just the News.

Buma worked for the FBI for 15 years, including working on counterintelligence matters from 2013 until February 2022. He had been assigned to the Los Angeles field office since 2018. The court filings said Buma’s duties included “managing confidential human sources” until December 2022.

“Buma printed approximately 130 files from the FBI’s internal network, several of which summarized information provided to the FBI by CHSs, [Confidential Human Sources], some of which was clearly marked with warnings that made clear that the information was to be protected,” the FBI affidavit against Buma said last month of his actions at a Los Angeles field office on October 27, 2023. 

“Buma also printed nine text-file documents which contained text that had been copied and pasted from reports which were marked in such a way that made clear that the information must be protected, and which summarized information provided to the FBI by CHSs. Buma also printed out screenshots of messages he exchanged with an FBI CHS via an encrypted messaging application. After printing those materials, Buma emailed FBI supervisors about his intent to go on leave without pay, then left the FBI office.”

The FBI special agent who wrote the criminal affidavit said that the 130 files taken by Buma included at least eight “sensitive information reports related to a foreign adversary” and at least eight reports “related to CHS information” from 2021 and 2022.

The FBI included in its court filings an email which the bureau said Buma sent to a personal associate, with the email stating that Buma “took a halve [sic] a Loraz, two beers, a Cialis, and a Bystolic to get it down. It’s all [in] Anticipation of what I know k [sic] need to get and do while there for five or so hours today; which mu [sic] be my last with my beloved bureau, which gave me so many opportunities to shine previously :(”

Loraz is a prescription medicine used to treat anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (excessive worry or restlessness), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic attacks, and social phobias. It is also used for the short-term relief of the symptoms of anxiety.

The email was sent the day Buma allegedly absconded with FBI records.

Buma's alleged use of the pilfered documents

The criminal affidavit against Buma contends that, three days after Buma allegedly made off with confidential FBI documents, he posted several messages online containing excerpts of a draft of a book he was writing about his FBI career – which contained information he had learned through his FBI job about FBI investigations into a foreign country’s WMD program.

The court filings also argue that, in the fall of 2023, “a U.S. media entity published an article containing confidential information related to reporting that was provided by a CHS to the FBI related to an associate of a foreign official and that Buma knew he had a duty to protect.”

The New York Times reported in May 2024 that at least four of the informants with whom Buma had been working had been dropped by the FBI.

For a number of years, Buma had made allegations that the FBI was mishandling a variety of sensitive investigations, claiming his efforts to scrutinize Giuliani, also a former New York City mayor, were blocked. Joe Cammarata, a lawyer for Giuliani, celebrated Buma’s arrest in a March 22 tweet last month. “FBI agent who went after my client Rudy Giuliani has been arrested!” Giuliani's attorney said. “The vindication of Rudy continues.”

Giuliani has repeatedly denied being compromised by Russia, and has never been charged with any crime related to the allegations made by Buma.

The FBI said in its affidavit against Buma that, in a book draft written by the arrested FBI agent, he described himself as “one of the nation’s top performing counterintelligence agents at catching and flipping Russian spies” and that he called himself “the most significant whistleblower in FBI history.”