There’s quite a bit of whinging about FBI Director Christopher Wray’s giving notice that he will resign his post at the end of President Biden’s term. Wasn’t that inevitable after Sen. Chuck Grassley’s letter?
To save you the trouble of reading it, in the letter Sen. Grassley makes a prima facie case that Director Wray has been nonfeasant, misfeasant, malfeasant or all of the above.
You may disagree. You may think that Kash Patel is unfit to rectify the situation at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Maybe the Bureau is unmanageable at this point. But it’s pretty clear that something is very, very wrong with the FBI.
As I’ve said before I think the Bureau is redundant at this point. When the FBI was founded more than a century ago the federal government didn’t have dozens of armed agencies with police powers as is the case now. I don’t know that there’s a better illustration of the need for a major reorganization of the federal government than that. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
What is wrong with the FBI? Please keep it based upon facts and not rumor?
Steve
We have had two consecutive directors who have clearly been problematic—read Grassley’s letter (linked above). That alone points to an organizational problem. In addition there have been special agents clearly involved in political machinations. I’m skeptical it was just one bad apple. IMO assuming so is heedless.
Your evidence is Grassley’s letter? You honestly believe Grassley is non-partisan? Should I point out that Congress has had endless investigations, making many of the same claims in his letter, and time after time the star witnesses have reneged or refused to confirm GOP claims? That Congress has failed to support its claims?
The only maybe legitimate gripe would be about the sexual misconduct allegations. Just like the military, the FBI has long been dominated by males, especially at the supervisory and active agent level. Sexual harassment and abuse are fairly common in those cultures. It seems more likely that this is a very long running issue, whistleblower sites record incidents going back many years, so it just seems convenient to now use this as an excuse to get rid of Wray. Really, this could have been used as an excuse to get rid of every general/admiral in the military. However, all we are seeing is Grassley’s claim. It would be nice to see what Wray’s response would be.
Finally, seems like it should be mentioned that Wray was appointed by Trump. That Comey’s handling of Clinton emails was investigated by Trump’s DOJ and while they criticized some details of how he handled stuff, especially using his friend to leak a letter from Trump, there was no evidence of bias against Trump. Remember how we had 8 Benghazi investigations? They, meaning Trump’s chosen investigators, already investigated and found the FBI did not show prejudice, but now, for political purposes, they want to investigate the same thing again. Seriously, how do you fall for this? (Almost forgot, Comey was a Republican too.)
Steve
Stop with the ad hominem arguments, steve. Whether he’s partisan is irrelevant to whether what he’s saying is true or not. His letter is extensively foot-noted. Do you know what a prima facie case is?
I don’t care who appointed him. That Trump appointed him does not render him more competent than would otherwise be the case.
Steve: FISA warrants.
The discussion can end right there.
I think the FBI has problems, but I have zero confidence that what passes for Republicans or Democrats has the ability or desire to fix what actually ails the agency. The FBI is just one example.
I cant believe i went and did this since I knew it was a waste of time, but I looked at a bunch of Grassley’s footnotes. It’s largely evidence free, ignores prior investigations and a lot of it is just claims he makes. Some of them support that the FBI was doing things correctly so I suspect they were thrown in for bulk to make it look like there is a lot fo substance. Again, other than the sexual harassment stuff not much there. I would say it’s not ad hominem to say that Grassley is partisan and would say it’s hackery to claim that the majority of Grassley’s claims are realistic and substantial. (Seriously, how can you not know this. If the only evidence you can find is coming from a GOP senator, or Dem Senator for that matter, it’s not reliable.)
FISA warrants? What about the entire Patriot Act? These weren’t invented by the FBI but rather Congress. Now, if you want to claim that the FBI has failed to have enough spine to refuse to carry out directions from Congress to carry out what have sometimes been unconstitutional behavior I can agree with some of that. But, that’s mostly on Congress.
To be clear, the FBI does have some problems, just like every other law enforcement agency. They make mistakes. When put in difficult situations by politicians they have tried to figure out ways to appease both sides actually making no one happy.
PS- You do realize that the star GOP witness for many of Grassley’s claims, Smirinov, was just admitted he was making up stuff and is being charged with bringing lies to law enforcement?
Steve
FBI should have been gone after they failed to prevent 9-11and became redundant with the creation of Homeland Security. Wray’s gone, good.