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Trump Moves to Control the FBI
In case you are wondering, the title of this post is as distorted as the relationship reported between President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel. Many people are disturbed because these two men are not following the patterns of previous presidents and FBI directors—which, of course, makes them suspect. Trump is accused of developing an overly close relationship with Patel, which the legacy media dislikes. But this arrangement works well for both Patel and Trump.
The first annoying fact is that Trump is being accused of violating the chain of command. Gosh, I guess presidents get to do that:
While every FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover has taken pains to keep the White House at arm’s length, the new Trump administration has taken the opposite tack, working to bring the traditionally independent ethos of the FBI and Justice Department firmly within the president’s grasp.
Patel’s determination to keep in close contact with Trump himself is an arrangement outside the traditional chain of command in which the FBI director reports to the deputy attorney general, and the president usually talks only to the attorney general.
Let’s take a closer look at these arrangements. First, the legacy media has no idea about the relationships of past presidents and FBI directors. Since when is the “traditionally independent ethos” of the FBI and Justice an advantage? In fact, because Pam Bondi, Patel and Trump know each other quite well, they have no reason to “present an image” that satisfies the media. The more they all communicate with each other, and keep each other up-to-date, the more likely they are to conduct themselves ethically and professionally.
Loyalty to Trump has been a hot issue, particularly with the disappointments and betrayals he experienced from the people he appointed for his first term:
Soon after Trump’s inauguration, the White House installed a 2022 law school graduate, Paul Ingrassia, as its liaison for the Justice Department. Ingrassia vetted candidates for Justice Department roles and stressed loyalty to Trump in the process, people familiar with his work said.
Ingrassia also asked one senior official whom he had voted for. I suspect that was one step too far for the administration—and Ingrassia was transferred to another department. But I think verifying the loyalty of an employee to the administration is a reasonable action.
At his congressional address this past week, Trump acknowledged the fine work of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to a standing ovation. Another pointed media comment followed:
The attendance of an FBI director at such an event is itself a rarity.
Is that supposed to mean something ominous? Too much loyalty?
But when the media gets desperate to find a scandal to write about, it just makes it up. The Wall Street Journal reported that Patel wanted to have a secure phone line direct to the president’s office; he also asked about hiring his own private security detail (although he would ordinarily be assigned an FBI detail). This was the FBI’s response to these unverified reports:
‘Director Patel’s FBI will not tolerate the dissemination of false information designed to both undermine the FBI’s mission and put our brave agents at security risk,’ FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said. ‘Dishonest leakers will be identified and dealt with appropriately.’
The FBI has also cancelled its subscription to the Wall Street Journal, which had published a number of articles based on anonymous sources in recent days. Williamson told Just the News that ‘the FBI will no longer use precious American tax dollars to help spread false information about our agents who put themselves in harm’s way.’
Although canceling one subscription is not a big deal, the reason for the cancellation sends the message that lies and leaks will not be tolerated.
That works for me! How about you?
Published in Politics
In the constitution, all executive power is invested in the president. There are better and worse ways to manage and use that power, but it is the president’s power.
The crying is all about panic that the media and their deep state perps are going to lose control. Then be outed for their past misdeeds.
😢 boohoo !
Which corrupt Dem administration harped on “prosecutorial discretion” when asked about ignoring for prosecution certain federal laws in favour of others? I know one of the Obama DoJ’s first actions was to drop an existing slam dunk election interference case against Philadelphia black panthers, just before it purged every single conservative or Republican from various District offices. So investigation and prosecution seem to be closely aligned to Presidents’ agendas for a good while. They broke it but if we bought it I don’t care.
Fortunately Trump and Patel are on the same page–apply the law!
I’m still laughing over a comment last week from the press that said Democrats were worried that a weakened administrative state wouldn’t be able to stand up to Trump. They give the game away.
Funny that it is not a constitutional issue of crisis when the FBI is completely in the tank for a hyper-partisan administration (Biden), not a problem when they conspire to undo an election (2016) with unlawful participation (even lying to a FISA judge) to foster a bogus investigation (Russiagate). But undoing that partisan infrastructure to instead do actual criminal and counterterrorist enforcement work is a great scandal. And presumably, accountability is also a grave threat to the nation.
The top echelon of the FBI has always been political but mostly for the self-interest of the bureau. I recall in 1968 when my father, then a former DOJ attorney put down the newspaper and said “Gene McCarthy must be the cleanest man in American politics.” McCarthy did not seem like my Dad’s first choice as a presidential candidate so I asked. “How so?” He replied that within the last few weeks McCarthy had vowed that if elected, he would order the removal of J Edgar Hoover as Director–and since then there were no scandalous revelations about him in the news.
The lazy arrogance of Comey and McCabe is a different and even sleazier political stance for the leadership of the Bureau and deserves a thorough house-cleaning.
The President has taken an oath to protect the Constitution and to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress. So has the director of the FBI. This is a non-issue.
“We take the chain-of-command very seriously; its tenets are sacred, sacrosanct, and inviolable … unless Donald Trump is involved. “
I’ll believe the FBI is in policing business, instead of the blackmail business, when the Epstein files are released.
If only Trump had been able to control the FJB.
The more I hear the whining by the bureaucrats about agency “independence” the more I think of the question, “Independence from what?”
If “the people” are sovereign as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and “the people” don’t like what the “independent” agency is doing, how do “the people” exert control over the “independent” agency?
In its extreme, when a law enforcement agency “independent” of control by some representatives elected by “the people,” the people are no longer sovereign, the law enforcement agency becomes supreme, and the society becomes a de facto police state.
I understand that there likely has been some past desire by presidents to avoid appearing too involved in law enforcement so as to minimize the perception the public might get that law enforcement is driven more by political affiliation than by the law. It is important to the “rule of law” that the public generally believe that laws are enforced impartially, and not based on political affiliation. But much of the public (according to polls) perceived that under the Obama and Biden administrations law enforcement was politically driven. And that the law enforcement bureaucracy has become politicized and no longer impartial.
So how does law enforcement recover a public perception of impartiality? Strong external control may be necessary to fix the bureaucracy.
By generations of good conduct. Or by arresting and jailing anyone who speaks of their crimes. But the latter never works as well as they pretend.
Or you have someone like Kash Patel who has a stellar reputation for enforcing the law!
It is bad enough to have a national police force (the FBI) which is justified nowhere in the Constitution. It was an illegitimate agency when it began under Teddy Roosevelt and his AG, Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon) and was a rogue agency from the outset. One of the first major endeavors of the Bureau of Investigation (which was illicitly funded by shifting funds from the Secret Service to the new agency) was to investigate Congressmen who were investigating the Teapot Dome scandal under Harding. So egregious was the behavior of the Bureau that its director was forced to resign. Then Coolidge made the colossal mistake of elevating J Edgar, who was up to his eyeballs in illicit collaboration attempting to intimidate Congressment, but escaped scrutiny because he was not in charge, to the directorship. And therein was the genesis of Shumer’s comment that a President didn’t want to cross the intelligence services because those services could hurt him. Under Hoover, the FBI investigated politicians as much as they investigated the Mafia, (or more-there may have been a justifiable rationale for that?) That is the standard view of the “arm’s length” relationship of Presidents to the FBI. The FBI could blackmail a President. Such a delightful, democratic institution! There is still speculation that the intelligence agencies may have been involved in the JFK assassination. And the FBI was investigating (illegitimately) Martin Luther King, Jr, not protecting him. In fact, trying to get him dead. It was the FBI after all that tried to suggest to King that he commit suicide.
There is actually no good reason for the existence of the FBI. When it is not corrupt, it is incompetent. I can’t argue with Kash Patel as director, as he is the best director in my lifetime, simply because he is an honest man and a real law enforcement officer. Unlike most of the FBI directors, who have by and large been psychopaths. The Progressive ascendency in America is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that the FBI, strictly a creation of the Progressive Federal leviathan, is viewed as an iconic agency by Conservatives. It should be ended. The NYPD at one point was far superior to the FBI in intelligence and competency than the FBI. State police are capable of doing anything the FBI can do. One can keep the fingerprint database and crime lab, make their resources available to State and Local law enforcement, turn over intelligence operations regarding foreign entities to the Defense Intelligence Agency, which cannot surveil American citizens, and be done with the FBI. Its history is one long atrocity after another, interspersed with failures and incompetence.
Investigation of Federal crimes. There is no chain of command to any state or local investigative body.
U.S. Marshalls have been around longer than the FBI. Are they constitutional? Necessary?
The same problem set, though I think they mainly arrest people. That means finding people. I think their investigations focus on that.
I don’t see much use in having parts of the executive branch working against each other: surely that is a job best left to Congress.
Leaks are loathsome. A house divided against itself and all that, but perhaps worse is the faux-leak which is a useful tool in war but using it regularly to form public opinion is pathetic.
And speaking of pathetic, any agency that handles secret information has no business leaking. At all. This goes double for any agency or company that is handling my private information.
This concludes my rant.
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And you speak for many of us, Rob! All these years complaining about leaks but essentially shrugging our shoulders is unacceptable!
Your comment is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Are you talking about crimes like the abduction of Gretchen Whitmer? Like the rifling through Melania’s drawers at Mar a Lago? Of Trump’s instigation of Jan 6? Or his collusion with Russia in the 2016 election? Or the surveillance of Carter Page? Of the FBI “investigation” of Cliven Bundy that was so abusive that a federal judge dismissed the case with prejudice? Or the “investigations” carried out with the “assistance” of Whitey Bulgar? So “undercover” were the FBI agents handling him that they were accomplices to his murders?
You realize there is some evidence that the FBI instigated the Oklahoma City bombing as a sting operation and botched it, which evidence was swept under the carpet by Merrick Garland, who managed the McVeigh and Nichol’s trials? Or maybe not. But the FBI seems to be deeply involved in “sting” operations that appear to have the primary purpose of making the FBI look good. Even then, they mostly don’t succeed.
The FBI apparently was in on “Fast and Furious” running guns to the Mexican cartels.
Maybe you are referring to the FBI role in “investigating” MLK, Jr?
Or the FBI role in Waco.
I would suggest reading Neil Gorsuch”s book, “Over Ruled” in which he bemoans the vast proliferation of federal laws and crimes.
Remember, Elliot Ness was NOT an FBI agent, but a Treasury Department investigator during Prohibition.
When Giuliani prosecuted the Mob in NYC from his post as US Attorney for the southern district, he worked as closely with the NYPD as he did with the FBI.
There certainly can be a chain of command with state and local law enforcement, and that can be expanded. When J Edgar was more or less forced to deal with the Osage murders in Oklahoma, he knew he couldn’t send any of his Washington, D.C based agents. He selected Tom White, a former Texas Ranger, who was a real law man, to pursue those investigations.
Bill Ayers is guilty as sin and free as a bird because the FBI botched that investigation. Likewise with the Black Panthers that were put in federal prisons. They got out based on FBI misconduct. And on and on.
A lot of federal crimes involve tax evasion. You could do away with those by ending the IRS and the Federal Income tax, which I have long advocated as inimitable to the Federal Republic that was created by the Constitution.
As I said: We would be far better off without the FBI.
This raises some good points. There are resources in the FBI that can support local law enforcement. But there needs to be a review of what, if any, offenses cannot be tried in state courts, or investigations that cannot be conducted without interstate cooperation.
Most if not all of the issues you cite are products of the machinations of the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. They are the ones playing at politics. The real work of the FBI is literally and figuratively beneath them. That needs to be fixed. I believe much of it has been. The three current and former US soldiers who have just been arrested for treason are just the latest examples of what the Bureau should be up to.
Now they just need to arrest the treasonous politicians, not just soldiers.