Recommended: Has The FBI Lost Its Way?

No, I didn’t choose that title just to bump traffic by people falling over one another to make the obvious comment—that happened a long time ago. I really do want to recommend Debra Heine’s article about the FBI whistleblower who has exposed some of the very troubling details behind the FBI’s investigation of Project Veritas:

FBI Whistleblower: The Direction of the Bureau ‘Troubles a Vast Majority of the Agents’

Let me just say that I accept what the whistleblower is saying—that the “vast majority” of agents are “troubled” by what’s going on, by the direction the FBI has taken toward becoming a political police organization. I’m quite sure the great majority of agents didn’t sign on for that. The problem is, there’s a huge disconnect between the rank and file of the FBI and its management, much of which has been parachuted in from outside, in the form of lawyers with no real commitment to impartial investigations. That has, indeed, been the case certainly since the appointment of Robert “Bob” Mueller, who filled the higher levels with former DoJ types like Andrew Weissmann, with his troubling past history of abusive tactics. That continued with Jim Comey, and featured many of the same faces and names as under Mueller. But there are plenty more like them, as we’ve seen throughout the history of the Russia Hoax. Sadly, nothing seems to have changed under Chris Wray. The end result of this is that agents seeking “administrative advancement”, i.e., promotion into management ranks, self select for a willingness to toe whatever line comes down from the politicized higher ups.

With that preamble, Heine does a good job presenting what the whistleblower has to say. Follow the link for the details of the Project Veritas investigation, but I’ll just say that the whistleblower seems convincing in his understanding of how the FBI works internally and of the legal principles and concerns involved in these types of investigations. Here’s how the article concludes, quoting the whistleblower:

“I would hope that we could end up with a nonpartisan law enforcement agency in this country that’s not doing things that seem to be inappropriate for the power that it wields,” the whistleblower told O’Keefe.

“We cannot have partisan investigations and using a piece of the executive branch as a weapon,” he added.

“Tyranny happens incrementally, and it happens by a bunch of people agreeing to small injustices over and over simply to keep their paycheck and their pension,” the whistleblower said.

“It’s a really really dangerous step that if you’re willing to accept incremental tyranny and small abuses of your authority, you take the pensions, and you’ll walk it to wherever that dark end is,” he continued. “I don’t have a problem with people who think they’re doing the right thing. I have a problem with people who are doing the wrong thing, and they know it.”

When asked what his message would be to other FBI agents, he said, “You took an oath, you gotta live it. You’re the only one who’s going to answer for it.”

ADDENDUM: While the whistleblower is absolutely correct in maintaining that employees of an organization have to live by their principles, that’s not entirely satisfactory as a solution—especially when we’re dealing with a law enforcement organization, or almost any other branch of government. The sad truth is that principled people are replaceable—by unprincipled people. Agents who resign or blow whistles but end up being marginalized or forced out will be replaced, and since the hiring process is heavily weighted toward weeding out potential future “trouble makers”, the result will be a more monolithically politicized organization.

The solution, of course, is for Congress—accountable to We The People—to vigorously exercise its oversight duties and authorities. The problem is that the Left sees an advantage in gaming our constitutional order to achieve a politicization of executive agencies as well as the courts. It’s all part of the Long March through societal institutions that began in the 60s.