FBI Reaction To Trump's Election
I knew this would be true--not all FBI agents were behind their top management's efforts to sabotage Trump. Not his campaign and not his presidency. Monica Showalter offers quotes via The Daily Beast of messages that some of these pro-Trump agents sent the morning after Trump's "surprise" victory--as quoted in the Horowitz Dossier.
I have nothing really to add. After all, this amounts to anecdotal evidence--it's not a poll of the state of mind within the FBI or anything like that. Still, it's a pretty good indication that the atmosphere in top management is somewhat rarefied. I've written in the past of the army of lawyers who, in recent decades, have been "parachuted" into top positions at the FBI, including placing former prosecutors into the Director's office. I spoke of this to Lee Smith, about the toxic, politicized, and antinomian culture that was thus imported. Smith was good enough to include my views in Chapter 15 of his book, The Plot Against The President .
As always happens, these changes in leadership also led to changes in the selection not only of agent candidates but, especially, of those who would rise through management ranks. The rise of the Strzoks and McCabes and Priestaps tells a lot about the cultural state of the FBI, in and of itself.
Showalter writes about some of this at Daily Beast reports presence of conservatives in the FBI like it's a bad thing . Note, of course, that the agents who are quoted, while apparently unapologetic, do feel embattled. Here's the quote from The Daily Beast:
The report released Monday by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz revealed messages between several FBI employees celebrating President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory.
One supervisory special agent wrote via instant message that he was “so elated with the election” and that watching election coverage was like “watching a Superbowl comeback.” The agent later explained his messages to Horowitz’s office, claiming that they thought Hillary Clinton would win and it was “energizing” to see Trump claim victory. “I didn’t want a criminal to be in the White House,” he said.
Hey, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me! A lot more reasonable than the views of the Strzoks, Pages, and McCabes of the FBI world--let alone Jim "So Many Questions" Comey.
Two other FBI agents also expressed pleasure with the 2016 election results. “Shit just got real,” one employee wrote in messages uncovered by the IG report. “I saw a lot of scared MFers on... (my way to work) this morning. Start looking for new jobs fellas. Haha.” The other agent replied, “LOL.” In response, the employee remarked: “Come January I’m going to just get a big bowl of popcorn and sit back and watch.” The other agent replied: “That's hilarious!”
I have to say, I LMAOed when I read that. It gave me just a bit of hope. There's a lot of truth in Bill Haydon's observation to George Smiley that the health of the intelligence services reflects the health--or lack thereof--of a society. And that means there's a long road ahead, judging from the Horowitz Dossier.