Is the FBI Out of Control, and How Can It Be Changed

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the FBI – the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI was born in the early 1900s at a time of growing problems in the nation. The following information comes from “A Brief History” of the FBI. 

The country’s cities had grown enormously by 1908 – there were more than 100 with populations over 50,000 – and understandably, crime had grown right along with them. In these big cities, with their many overcrowded tenements filled with the poor and disillusioned and with all the ethnic tensions of an increasingly immigrant nation stirred in for good measure, tempers often flared. Clashes between striking workers and their factory bosses were turning increasingly violent.

And though no one knew it at the time, America’s cities and towns were also fast becoming breeding grounds for a future generation of professional lawbreakers. In Brooklyn, a nine-year-old Al Capone would soon start his life of crime. In Indianapolis, a five-year-old John Dillinger was growing up on his family farm. And in Chicago, a young child christened Lester Joseph Gillis – later to morph into the vicious killer “Baby Face” Nelson – would greet the world by year’s end.

But violence was just the tip of the criminal iceberg. Corruption was rampant nationwide – especially in local politics, with crooked political machines like Tammany Hall in full flower. Big business had its share of sleaze, too, from the shoddy, even criminal, conditions in meat packaging plants and factories (as muckrakers like Upton Sinclair had so artfully exposed) to the illegal monopolies threatening to control entire industries.

The technological revolution was contributing to crime as well. 1908 was the year that Henry Ford’s Model T first began rolling off assembly lines in Motor City, making automobiles affordable to the masses and attractive commodities for thugs and hoodlums, who would soon begin buying or stealing them to elude authorities and move about the country on violent crime sprees. Twenty-two years later, on a dusty Texas back road, Bonnie and Clyde – “Romeo and Juliet in a Getaway Car,” as one journalist put it – would meet their end in a bullet-ridden Ford.

Just around the corner, too, was the world’s first major global war – compelling America to protect its homeland from both domestic subversion and international espionage and sabotage. America’s approach to national security, once the province of cannons and warships, would never be the same again.

            At the time, there was no “systematic way of enforcing the law across” America. There were police forces in some local communities and a few states, but “they were typically poorly trained, politically appointed, and underpaid.” On the national level, “there were few federal criminal laws” and only “a few thinly staffed federal agencies like the Secret Service” dealing with “national crime and security issues” such as anarchism – a “revolutionary call to overthrow capitalism and bring power to the common man.” These revolutionaries [terrorists] believed that “government was oppressive and repressive” and “should be overthrown by random attacks on the ruling class.”

            Several world leaders were assassinated, including President William McKinley. He was shot in Buffalo, New York, and died eight days later on September 14, 1901. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the POTUS. Roosevelt was “a staunch advocate of the rising ‘Progressive Movement.’ Roosevelt “was a believer in the law and in the enforcement of that law.” The FBI was born under Roosevelt’s “reform-driven leadership.”

            In 1906, Roosevelt appointed Charles Bonaparte to be the Attorney General. Bonaparte was the “grandnephew of the infamous French emperor” as well as “a noted civic reformer.” Bonaparte “borrowed” trained Secret Service agents but lacked control over the investigations. He took the problem to Congress, hoping for relief but being stopped from using Secret Service agents. In his frustration, he gathered some Secret Service agents and a group of his own men and formed the FBI. The birthdate of the FBI is July 26, 1908.

            At some point along the way, the FBI – at least the leadership of it – became an arm of the Democrat Party. This became obvious from the persecution heaped upon Donald Trump from the time that he came down his golden escalator and declared himself to be a candidate for President of the United States. The FBI spied on Candidate Trump and continued on President Trump. After more than two years and millions of dollars, the Mueller investigation showed that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia in the 2016 presidential election. Evidence also showed that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, paid for the fake dossier used to obtain FISA warrants.

            After Russian collusion was proven to be false, Democrats continued their attempt to destroy Trump through two impeachments and the January 6 investigation. Even though he was no longer POTUS, Trump Derangement Syndrome was still affecting many Americans. However, Trump’s base stuck with him. The Democrats are fearful that Trump will run for POTUS again and be elected. So, the now corrupt FBI raided the Trump estate at Mar-a-Lago.

            No one believes that the lower levels of the FBI are all corrupt, but there are many who believe that the FBI leadership is corrupt. There is talk about abolishing the FBI in its entirety. There are other people calling for changes. Charles Sullivan posted an article titled “How to break up the FBI” at American Thinker. In his article, he listed seven suggestions for breaking up the FBI. 

1.The best way to reduce the damage done by the FBI is to reduce its power. The best way to reduce its power is to break up the agency and move what’s left away from Washington.

2. Split off the domestic intelligence service from law enforcement…. Having both in the same agency gives too much power to the FBI.

3. Send all traditional law enforcement employees to the U.S. Marshal’s Service, as it was before the FBI was created.

4. Send all the remaining employees to new agencies.

5. Make all the former FBI employees at will employees permitting them to be fired with or without cause. The FBI has demonstrated again and again that it will not punish its employees’ misconduct if those employees are politically connected Democrats. Making employment at-will will greatly facilitate getting rid of bad applies.

6. Close the FBI headquarters in D.C.

7. Increase whistleblower protection for all intelligence agency employees. Statistically, most corruption inside large organizations is disclosed by insiders. The protections provided by the federal Whistleblower Protection Act do not apply to federal government intelligence employees. The law needs to be amended so that intelligence agency misfeasance and malfeasance can be reported without reprisals.

            Many conservatives are saying that the FBI crossed a line when they raided Mar-a-Lago. Is it possible to get rid of the corruption without dismantling the FBI? I do not know. I do know that our freedoms are in danger if there is a rogue federal law enforcement agency. If the FBI is not brought into line soon, our democratic republic could be destroyed, and our Constitution trashed. As an example of this trashing, look at the Fourth Amendment: 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

            Trump’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated. The search warrant allowed the FBI to search the entire 128-room estate and to take any papers created from the day Trump was inaugurated to the day that he left office. It was not a “narrow” search, nor has the “probable cause” been revealed. What makes any of us think that our rights will not be violated by a corrupt agency?