It is not often this column takes a position that is at least semi-quixotic, but sometimes one must take a stand and hope that some others join the cause. The FBI is so out of control and counter to what its real mission is that a new agency needs to be formed with new leaders, new personnel, and a revised mission.
The FBI is akin to a federal police force, meaning a group of detectives enforce federal laws while working in conjunction with municipal and state law enforcement particularly where criminal activities cross state borders.
Recently the agency’s mission has significantly changed.
9/11 was the catalyst the organization’s change. Robert Mueller took over as FBI director on September 4, 2001. To state the obvious, the events soon after were a startling beginning to his career (as the agency’s sixth director).
As he stated in his presentation to a House subcommittee on September 14, 2006, “After the September 11 attacks on America, the FBI priorities shifted dramatically. Our top priority became the prevention of another terrorist attack. Today, our top three priorities—counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber security—are all national-security related. To that end, we have made a number of changes in the Bureau, both in structure and in the way we do business. We have recently announced the realignment of our organizational structure to create five branches: National Security, Criminal Investigations, Science and Technology, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and Human Resources.”
What we did not need was another CIA-like operation as there are sixteen of them already. What we do need from the FBI is to focus on the basics of law enforcement.
The problem came to the forefront during the directorship of Mueller’s successor, James Comey. He became infamous not for taking on Donald Trump, with whom he went to war, but his opponent in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton. He held a news conference telling America about the problems with her elicit computer system which was outside the bounds of her appointed governmental position and should never have existed.
After telling us of her misdeeds, he did not turn the case over to the Justice Department. Instead, he made the stunning statement, “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” As a cop he now became prosecutor and kneecapped any attempt by the DOJ to evaluate the strength of any case and whether it should be brought.
Matters have since escalated since due to the war with Trump and the various high level FBI employees like Peter Strzok and his paramour, Lisa Page, working to undermine President Trump and others through their political agendas.
You have to wonder why the FBI offered $1 million of our money to Christopher Steele “to prove his explosive claims” in what has become known as the Steele Dossier. Of course, he was never able to validate the dossier and did not get the money. The FBI thereafter used the disproved dossier disinformation to request warrants from the FISA court.
Then there is the amazing case of the Hunter Biden laptop. They seized the laptop from the owner of a computer repair shop where it was abandoned. They sat on it for almost a year until the owner turned a copy of the laptop hard drive over to Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani then provided a copy of the hard drive’s contents to the oldest newspaper in America, The New York Post.
That is when the world (at least the part of the world interested in finding out the truth about what is on the computer) met Tony Bobulinski. He is the only real businessman involved in the Biden business dealings. He validated the authenticity of what was on the laptop with his own copies of emails in which he was included. Yet in further evidence of the politicization of the FBI, they met with him once and never followed up. They did not want to know what he knew because that would validate the very questionable behavior of the family Biden and help his opponent.
This was not a last-minute dirty trick because it was not a dirty trick at all. Since they had this laptop in 2019, they could have easily brought forth the information early in the election cycle and not been seen as partisan. Instead, they hid it and thus suppressed the truth.
The Twitter Files have provided an entirely new twist as we have learned that the FBI corralled Twitter from the inside. We have come to find out James Baker — who gave a FBI hall pass to Michael Sussman (Hillary’s campaign lawyer in 2016) — was now in a pivotal position at Twitter. He and his cluster of former FBI agents were behind killing the laptop story in coordination with current members of the FBI. Along with other acts of suppression of Twitter members, it is now clear there were violations of the First Amendment. The current FBI has lied about why they paid Twitter $3.5 million of our money to silence voices on the platform.
If the FBI were not slanted, then what is the explanation for the disparate in treatment of pro-life vs. pro-choice individuals? Person after person who peacefully protested at abortion clinics are having their homes raided months later by a team of heavily armed FBI agents. While since the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v Wade there have been 230 attacks on churches and pregnancy centers and not one person has been arrested. Recently, the FBI offered a $25,000 reward for information on these cases. Then they finally charged two people. This seems like a mirage to appear as if they are actually interested in pursuing these cases. I blind man can see there is something wrong here.
We keep hearing about the fact that agents in the field are really good people; it is just the folks running the operation in Washington who are the “bad apples.” How could the field agents not have been affected by the attitudes and positions taken by the FBI leadership? If they are such fine people, why have none publicly resigned? The only ones we now know who left are the ones who went to Twitter to create a cabal to suppress free speech.
The current director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has been an unmitigated disaster. Trump appointed him to clean up the operation and he has done anything but. Under his regime errant agents were not fired, the Hunter Biden laptop story was buried, and the manipulation of social media occurred. The protection of the organization was paramount instead of protection of the Constitution.
In the recent boondoggle, omni-bust us bill, $400 million was allocated for new FBI headquarters. This is a perfect time for a clean break. Start a new agency with a clear agenda that takes the organization back to its roots, focusing the efforts on law enforcement and the protection of constitutional norms.
Trash this deeply misguided, dangerously out-of-control organization.
