Defending the FBI
What an odd position I find myself in – defending the FBI.
I remember the FBI of the 1960’s, the end of the J. Edgar Hoover era, when their were illegal wiretaps on Martin Luther King, and files of what today we would call “kompromat” in a cabinet in Hoover’s office. And while I grew up watching “The FBI -in Color” on TV, where every crime was solved and the nation protected, I also knew that the Bureau was protecting the status quo, from the Vietnam War to the White House during Watergate. I often quoted the George Carlin line about wiretaps when answering the phone, “…f**k Hoover, may I help you.”
And it was only sixteen months ago that I was railing against the FBI Director, James Comey, who so clearly tipped the scales in the Presidential election, announcing at the last minute that the Clinton email investigation was reopened. I believed (and still do) that his hand was forced by his own agency, with leaks about the Weiner Laptop already coming out of the New York office. I suspect Comey acted to cut off his own department’s duplicity, though that’s a question I don’t think will ever be answered.
So here I am today, defending the FBI, an agency under attack from those that have for generations been there greatest supporters. From Fox News to Congress to the White House, the FBI is being dragged through the mud. Like any massive agency (35,000) it is a bureaucracy, and sometimes things get lost. In the Parkland shooter case, two warnings out of thousands were in some way mishandled, and a possible way to prevent the disaster was missed.
That needs to be fixed. Just as after 9-11 the Bureau had to “up its game” to stop terrorism, in the same way it will need to find answers to its current bureaucratic maze. The term is “stovepiping;” when information gets stuck in one column of authority, and not shared with others. We discovered the concept after 9-11, when multiple branches and agencies had bits of information about the terrorists: if all of that had come together before 9-11, we might have avoided the attack. The fact that we have prevented that kind of organized mass terrorism since speaks to the effectiveness of the solutions put in place. I’m sure the FBI will resolve this one as well.
And while the current criticism of the FBI has some validity, the reality is that much of it is based in politics. The President and his supporters have made one pillar of their defense that the FBI is on a political “witch hunt,” led by “Deep State” bureaucrats that hate Trump. If they can de-legitimize the FBI, they give Republican Congressmen a way to deny a possible Trump impeachment.
For a moment, let’s look at facts. The FBI opened investigations into the Trump campaign after receiving information about possible Russian contacts from varying sources, including Papadoupolos drinking and talking too much in London, the Page wiretaps, and warnings from Allied foreign intelligence agencies. After President Trump fired Director Comey, the investigation was put under the direction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He continues to lead his mix of attorneys and FBI investigators, already indicting Papadoupolos, Flynn, Manafort, and Gates, and thirteen more Russians.
Mueller, ironically, is the former FBI Director who reformed the Bureau after 9-11, taking it from a primarily crime fighting agency to one geared to stop terrorism. His reputation is so solid, that the Trump defenders can’t attack him directly. So instead, they launch volley after volley at the FBI.
It must feel like the ultimate betrayal to the leadership of the Bureau. They are known to be generally conservative, law supporting and abiding, and less diverse than any other government agency. They are the very model of the modern day Republican, at least what the model Republican was before Trump.
Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity: that is the motto of the FBI. Robert Mueller is the absolute embodiment of that motto, and he will plow forward with the work he has begun. And the FBI leadership will continue to do their job, despite their portrayal in the “Trump World” media. The danger is to their ability to do their work. If the integrity of the FBI is in question, if the national trust in them is lost; then why would the young Islamic man come to them with word of a terrorist plot, and why would world agencies share the most sensitive information with them?
That is the danger of the Trump strategy. To protect themselves from Mueller, they are trying to discredit the agency with the primary mission of defending us. Even with its flaws, we must defend the FBI.
The tragic fact of Russian interference in the 2016 election imposed an urgent demand on the US Intelligence Community .. protect the election at all costs. The huge obstacle to this was it was the Obama administration’s – doing Herculean work behind the scenes – responsibility to stop it. And Republican leaders, in pursuit of their own self-interest, refused to cooperate, distrusting the information and the intent of the massive effort.
This forms the framework of Trump’s distrust in the IC. It’s basically all he’s heard (note, not necessarily *told*, as Trump selectively focuses on matters that affect him personally) since he was first included in national security briefings. And as he became agitated about the implications the information would have on him personally (because we *know* he would consider this as a personal assault on his legitimacy), I’m sure his aides would calm him down by saying that it was nothing and would blow over. Which it didn’t. Which is probably why he’s still irrationally sensitive to any mention of Russian interference.
The good news (sadly, considering the consequences) is Obama’s IC did their job. They ensured that the election and the vote was clean. *Their job wasn’t politics, it was protecting the democratic process.* They gave us Trump, for good or for ill. And while I (and maybe even they) may not be excited about that, we should be proud and grateful for their massive effort.
I’m not so sure that we “know” that the election and vote was clean. It’s taken over a year for the Dept of Homeland Security to acknowledge that Russia attacked “at least” 21 states election departments, and that “a small few” were infiltrated. With the number of hacks into major American institutions, from Sony to Experian to the Office of Personnel Management, it seems to me it’s very possible that our elections were not “clean.” It wouldn’t take a lot to alter the 2016 Presidential outcome, 77,744 votes is all the difference. Check out unhackthevote and two previous essays We Are at War and 77744.