by WorldTribune Staff, December 6, 2017
In the span of 16 years, liberal directors Robert Mueller and James Comey transformed the FBI from an illustrious crime fighting organization to a politically correct retribution machine that is answerable to no one, intelligence and FBI sources say.
“Once a bastion of conservative anti-communism under long-time director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has become one of the more liberal political agencies of government, and some critics say appears increasingly to operate outside normal constitutional controls,” Bill Gertz wrote in a Dec. 6 analysis for The Washington Free Beacon.
Under Mueller, who headed the agency from 2001 to 2013, and Comey, who succeeded Mueller and served as director until he was fired by President Donald Trump in May, the FBI has come to regard itself as a power center that the White House can’t control, critics say.
“People are finally tumbling to the realization that this [FBI] has become a proto-KGB,” a former senior intelligence official with extensive experience in counterintelligence told Gertz. “We’re in a constitutional crisis. These guys are playing out a silent coup against an elected official.”
That elected official is Trump, who special counsel Mueller and his team of mostly-liberal prosecutors are said to be going after full throttle in retaliation for the president’s daring to criticize the FBI.
“Mueller, Comey, and (deputy attorney general Rod) Rosenstein are going to make Trump pay for having dissed the bureau,” the former official said.
According to Gertz’s analysis, FBI sources, agents and other personnel “have been told unequivocally that they are not to have any dealings with the White House, and that doing so risks career-ending measures.”
The agency’s current brass also seem to ignore the fact that the Constitution makes clear the FBI, as an executive branch agency, is ultimately responsible to the president.
For years under both Mueller and Comey, the FBI has also has stonewalled congressional overseers.
“Even routine requests for FBI documents and information have been rejected or ignored, and congressional overseers have not taken action to force the FBI to comply,” Gertz wrote. “The lack of congressional oversight and administration controls have left the FBI with enormous power and little accountability.”
Trump took aim at the FBI in tweets and comments this week.
“Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriends Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge,” Trump tweeted on Dec. 3.
“After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness,” the president also declared.
On Dec. 6, Mueller appeared to counter Trump’s comments by leaking word the special counsel has issued subpoenas for bank records at Deutche Bank related to Trump and members of his family.
Under President Barack Obama, “the FBI suffered a string of failures that critics blame on the FBI being pressured by liberal, politically correct policies that emphasized diversity and multiculturalism of its workforce over competence and results,” Gertz wrote.
The FBI’s shift to the left on Obama’s watch was “evident whenever a U.S.-based terror attack or other major crime takes place and the FBI, seemingly ever on the lookout for ways to protect its reputation, puts out word to pro-FBI news reporters that the problem is less serious than it is,” Gertz wrote.
“That was the case shortly after several major Islamic terror attacks in the United States when Bureau officials initially put out word the attacks had no link to terrorism. Similarly, when North Korea conducted a major cyber attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014, the FBI agent heading the probe at first said there was no foreign involvement in the hack.”
In another case of note, Gertz wrote, “last June, after an anti-Trump gunman – and Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter – shot a congressman and four other people in Alexandria, the FBI sought to minimize the politics of the incident. The agent running the investigation, Tim Slater, told reporters the shooting was ‘spontaneous,’ despite evidence the shooter had a list of targeted members of Congress.”
John Guandolo, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, criticized the FBI for yielding to pressure from Muslim groups in watering down its training of agents by limiting references to Islam and jihad, or holy war.
“I am not aware of any time in the FBI’s history when FBI leadership was so incapable of performing their duties as they are today,” Guandolo said.
“The FBI’s inability or lack of desire to aggressively pursue obvious major threats to the republic — the Marxist and Islamic movements for instance – is stunning and frightening.”
Guandolo said the FBI is working with “our Islamic enemy.”
“In fact, all three of the Muslim organizations listed on the FBI’s website as ‘Outreach Partners’ are Muslim Brotherhood organizations,” he said.
An FBI source told Gertz that Comey’s politically charged handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation upset many of the FBI’s agents who saw it as a disheartening indication of political bias in favor of Clinton.
National security strategist Angelo Codevilla attributed much of the FBI’s problem to careerism and an out of control bureaucracy.
“I’m afraid that the explanation is all too simple: Bureaucrats – employees of large organizations – figure out on which side their bread is going to be buttered,” Codevilla said. “They learn to think, feel, and do what advances their careers.”
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