(In Living Color)
One Show a Night
When I was a kid, I was only allowed to watch one hour of television a night, plus the news. It’s funny. Here I was, the kid of a television station manager, and I was restricted on how much TV I could see. But that was my parent’s “rule”. There was homework to do, and books to read, and conversations to be part of. So the one hour was “special”.
One of the shows I did watch was, as the announcer said; “…THE FBI (in living color), a Quinn Martin Production, starring Ephrem Zimbalist Jr.” The show told the story of FBI Special Agent Lewis Erskine, who travelled the country to keep law and order. It was on the air from 1965 to 1974, long after my “one hour rule” was no longer enforced. It closely upheld the “standards” of the real FBI, and the infamous Director J Edgar Hoover took a strong interest in the show. The FBI wasn’t portrayed as a “namby-pamby” liberal-loving organization. The FBI enforced the law, no matter what. They stood against crime and terrorism and violent protests against the government.
J Edgar Hoover
That pretty much mirrored Hoover’s FBI, the one that investigated Martin Luther King as a Communist, and infiltrated many of the student protest movements. In fact, during the Vietnam Era, a young comedian, George Carlin did a bit about the FBI’s habit of tapping private phone lines. Carlin joked, that we should answer our phone, “F#*K Hoover, may I help you,” to let the FBI know how we felt.
The FBI infiltrated the student protest movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-nuclear weapons movement, and the climate change movement. To be fair, they also risked lives to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, but it certainly didn’t feel like there was a balance between left and right. Hoover upheld conservative values, and attacked liberal alternatives.
Law and Order
Ephrem Zimbalist Junior received an honorary membership in the Retired FBI Agent Association in 1985, eleven years after the show ended. Even as late as 2009, FBI Director Robert Mueller presented him with a plaque for his positive portrayal of their organization.
Peter Strzok, the former FBI Counter-Intelligence Agent who was ousted during the Trump-Russia investigation said it best. The FBI is dedicated to law and order, and because of that, it is a highly conservative organization. As Strzok put it, no one talks about politics in the FBI, but they all know where they stand. The FBI stopped gangsters, then mobsters, then Communists, then protestors. After 9-11, the mission changed to stop terrorism. The FBI “liberally” used the enhanced powers in the “Patriot Act” to monitor communications, from emails to cell phones. Robert Mueller, the Director who started on September 10th, made the FBI the “point of the spear” of America’s response to terrorism.
Crossfire Hurricane
His successor was James Comey, the Deputy Attorney General under George W Bush. Comey ordered the investigation of Hillary Clinton, Operation “Mid-Year Exam”. When Comey decided that the Obama Justice Department wouldn’t handle it correctly, he broke precedent by personally announcing that the FBI would not recommend Clinton be charged with a crime.
Then Clinton’s emails come up again on the computer of Anthony Weiner. He was the former Congressman.under investigation for sending pornography to a child. The emails turned up just weeks before the 2016 election, and Comey struggled. It was Justice Department policy NOT to interfere in an election. Reopening the investigation two weeks before election day would definitely “interfere”. Comey wrote that he felt “obligated” to make the investigation public. But there is an alternative story, perhaps more persuasive.
Trump campaign advisor Rudy Giuliani had strong ties in the New York FBI office. The Weiner investigation and the Clinton connection was already leaked to Giuliani, by agents working on the case. Comey really had the choice of trying to control the information himself, or have it leak out of his New York office. So he announced that he was re-opening the Clinton Investigation, Mid=Year Exam. That action that changed the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election.
At the same time, Comey was well aware that there was a continuing counter-intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign contacts with Russian Intelligence assets. The code name was “Crossfire Hurricane”. But he chose to hold that so close to the vest, that nothing was heard before the election. Like it or not, Comey “outed” the Clinton investigation, but kept the Trump investigation secret.
FBI Kind
This is the agency that some Republicans today claim leads a “liberal attack” on the conservative movement, and on Donald Trump. With perhaps the exception of ICE and the Secret Service in the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI (in living color) has proven again and again that it stands not only for American values, but for American conservative values. It really should be no surprise that the FBI knew a whole lot about the Black Lives Matter movement, but seemed to be completely clueless about the groups organizing for the January 6th Insurrection. The protestors on the Mall that day were the FBI’s “kind of people”. At least they were, until they broke the law.
On Tuesday, January 3rd 2023, Republicans by a slim five-vote margin will take control of the House of Representatives. We can expect to soon hear a lot about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the “liberal rot” of the top of the FBI. Many FBI agents will feel betrayed by the Republicans they undoubtedly supported. But to Republicans in Congress that’s OK. They need a scapegoat for the deep rot of the Trump Administration. They found one: The FBI (in living color). Jim Jordan’s phone message may well now say: “F#*K Wray, may I help you?”
