FBI, DOJ, SS Follies, Entrapment Attempts, & Stasi-Like Schemes (CIA & ATF, too)

[Crafty_Dog]

The Civil Forfeiture laws are a great blight upon the C'l Rule of Law of America!!!

Thank you for this article.   I am forwarding it to a very good friend who until a couple of years ago was high up in the DEA.  He is a good and honorable man, and we have had genuine conversation on this subject over several years.   I have him on his heels and this will add to my momentum.

[Body-by-Guinness]

The Civil Forfeiture laws are a great blight upon the C'l Rule of Law of America!!!

Thank you for this article.   I am forwarding it to a very good friend who until a couple of years ago was high up in the DEA.  He is a good and honorable man, and we have had genuine conversation on this subject over several years.   I have him on his heels and this will add to my momentum.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://ace.mu.nu/archives/412297.php

[Body-by-Guinness]

https://ace.mu.nu/archives/412297.php

The thought of all those venal, partisan bastards competing with each other for landing spots in think tanks and lobbying firms around town, reducing compensation packages via a glutted market, and likely thrusting subtle daggers into each other’s back as they jostle warms my heart.

Hopefully a huge wave of well timed security clearance revocations are also planned, and will be issued once these weasels have landed a job requiring a clearance….

[Crafty_Dog]

Trump election sends ‘stunned’ FBI brass to exit

Former investigators, senior executives see writing on wall

By Kerry Picket THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The brass on the seventh floor at FBI headquarters in Washington have been in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since Donald Trump was reelected president on Tuesday, inside sources say.

The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior agency executives were “stunned” and “shell-shocked” by Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” said the first FBI source, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr. Trump is inaugurated, sources say.

FBI employees recall Mr. Trump firing Director James B. Comey five months after taking the oath of office in 2017.

“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” the first

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray may be stepping down before Inauguration Day in January.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

source said. “Trump will say, ‘Yeah, fire his a--. Don’t let him take the plane home.’” Mr. Comey learned about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.

Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wray as FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is 10 years, depending on the president’s confidence.

Sources say others on the seventh floor of the FBI are so concerned about their jobs that they are likely to flood Washington’s private security job market.

Most of the sources said no one’s job in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe, and they fully expect Mr. Trump to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”

Former FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the state of the FBI is “frazzled.”

“I have friends still at the bureau telling me that no less than 50 senior executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said.

The Times reached out to the FBI for comment.

The FBI and Mr. Trump have had a tense history since the 2016 presidential campaign. Under Mr. Comey, the agency launched its Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in July 2016.

Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 raised suspicions in the Justice Department that the president was obstructing justice, leading to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly investigation. Mr. Mueller ultimately found no evidence that Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.

A subsequent government watchdog investigation found that FBI officials made numerous errors or omissions in secret warrant applications for surveillance of a Trump campaign aide.

More recently, The Times exclusively reported about an FBI whistleblower’s protected disclosure to Congress that Mr. Comey launched an off-the-books undercover criminal investigation against Mr. Trump in June 2015. The operation was not predicated on any particular case and was not connected to Russia.

Mr. Trump also clashed with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired in 2018 hours before his retirement. Mr. McCabe became a cable news analyst who was highly critical of Mr. Trump.

In August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida and seized documents. Subsequent criminal charges accused him of mishandling classified materials. That prosecution is now in jeopardy because of Mr. Trump’s reelection.

Many at the FBI remembered when Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan, a longtime FBI official, resigned six months into 2017 after Mr. Trump took office. Mr. Trump later hired him to head Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

Many on the seventh floor of the FBI are also concerned about billionaire technology executive Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, joining the Trump administration as head of a government efficiency commission.

“When he tries to do efficiency at headquarters, the place is going to have five people … if he’s talking about a lot of dead weight,” a second FBI source said.

“Try to find a person that’s actually working,” the source said. “That may be the biggest problem there — that there’s no efficiency. So that’s actually the bigger threat. If you’re going to try to make the government efficient, you would start with the FBI because if you do politics all the time, you’re probably bloated.”

FBI agents spent much of their time during the Biden administration seeking out, investigating and arresting Jan. 6 defendants. Mr. Trump has pledged to pardon them at the beginning of his second term.

A third FBI source said some bureau personnel tired of the Jan. 6 investigations are amused “at the fact that Trump [likely] pardons everybody involved in Jan. 6.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Don't you be eating anything while reading this lest you aspirate when running your eyes across concern about and "independent DOJ" losing that status under Trump. Yeah, right, independent under Garland. Gawd:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/politics/attorney-general-donald-trump-justice-department-fears

[ccp]

if the burgled are celebrities:

https://www.westernjournal.com/fbi-involved-homes-travis-kelce-patrick-mahomes-targeted-hours-apart/

So if someone came into my house and stole something would the FBI care or have time or resources to investigate?

[Body-by-Guinness]

Transplant from another thread:

« Reply #2065 on: Today at 04:34:13 PM »

Well this plot just got thicker:

https://justthenews.com/government/security/hldcell-companies-refute-fbi-testimony-j6-pipe-bomber-investigation-loudermilk?utm_medium=social_media&utm_source=facebook_social_icon&utm_campaign=social_icons

[Body-by-Guinness]

Comey before an appreciative audience describing how he set Flynn, and hence Trump up:

https://x.com/gregg_re/status/1857216473145450823

[Body-by-Guinness]

More on why Trump is likely avoiding the FBI background check process. Big surprise, the political biases of FBI leadership can derail some appointees:

Whistleblower warns FBI can’t be trusted with background checks for Trump’s nominees

By Kerry Picket and Jeff Mordock - The Washington Times - Saturday, November 16, 2024

An official at FBI headquarters in Washington is warning that the bureau’s security clearance division is politicized and can’t be trusted to screen President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for top administration jobs.

The allegations of political bias at the FBI’s Security Division or SecD were revealed in a protected whistleblower disclosure sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which The Washington Times reviewed.

The official said the security clearance process has been “contaminated by the political agendas of [Security Division] officials and other executives in the FBI.”

The process is also subordinate to the same FBI executives who Mr. Trump has promised to sweep out of the agency, according to the whistleblower.

“FBI SecD has been politicized, and both Director [Christopher] Wray and Deputy Director [Paul] Abbate have the ability to examine the background investigations of anyone who is having a security clearance done,” said the disclosure, which was submitted on Saturday.
The FBI whistleblower said lawmakers need to know that the background investigations are conducted by SecD, the same office that has been accused of weaponizing the process and using it to retaliate against FBI employees because of their political views, including conservative and pro-Trump views.

In a statement to The Times, the FBI cited the executive order and the section of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 that names the FBI as “one of the appropriate agencies responsible for candidate background investigations for Presidential appointees, White House staff, positions requiring Senate confirmation, and other national security positions requiring a security clearance.”

“Being completed as expeditiously as possible, the background investigation focuses on character and conduct. The FBI serves as an investigative service provider and does not adjudicate or render an opinion on the results of the background investigation. The FBI’s role is purely fact-finding. Once the investigation is complete, the report is sent to the Office of White House Counsel or the Office of the President-Elect for their use as deemed appropriate,” the FBI said.

Mr. Trump’s transition team has bypassed the traditional FBI background checks for some of his picks and instead uses private companies to screen the nominees, CNN reported.

The decision to bypass the FBI screening for nominees breaks with Washington norms and coincides with Mr. Trump’s unconventional picks, such as former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida for attorney general, Pete Haegseth for defense secretary and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary.

A security clearance is required for some Cabinet posts and that process includes an FBI background check. However, a president can override the process and order a security clearance for nominees, a power Mr. Trump will not have until he’s sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025.

The whistleblower said that SecD yanked security clearances of FBI employees for political reasons and that Mr. Wray and Mr. Abbate will have access to each background check that is performed.

“Under Wray and Abbate, SecD refused clearances to U.S. military veterans, employees who refused to get Covid shots, employees who attended Trump rallies and employees with conservative Christian beliefs,” the disclosure said. “The same FBI officials will be adjudicating President Trump’s nominees. Deputy Director Abbate and Director Wray will have unfettered access to any information that President Trump’s appointees provide during their security clearance background investigation.”

The bureau official also warns that SecD can share the information they learn with the Biden White House.

“There is no wall between the background investigation data held by SecD and the Director’s Office.  Anyone providing information to the FBI for background investigations should assume that the information, along with all associated electronic inquiries, will be provided to Deputy Director Abbate, Director Wray or even officials in the current White House administration for ‘national security reasons.’”

What’s more, anything that is gleaned from the background checks can be used by the bureau to send “lead” information to state officials for potential prosecutions, according to the disclosure.

“Based on statements that the FBI top leadership should be cleaned out, senior FBI officials have a personal interest in protecting their positions by providing background information to other agencies or giving informal briefings,” it said.

“Although the FBI may advise that it does not provide interim clearances, it actually does. One example of the FBI executives abusing their security authorization privilege was when Director Comey’s leaker from Columbia University was provided a security clearance or when leadership is allowed to maintain security clearances in order to get retirement jobs.”

Although security clearance background interviews are conducted by agents from FBI field offices, the security clearance investigations are controlled and adjudicated by SecD. Parts of SecD are located in Huntsville, Alabama, but the primary location of SecD and its leadership is at FBI headquarters in Washington.

The disclosure also alleges that there have been “hundreds of complaints of sexual misconduct by senior executives and none of them lost their security clearance.”

Mr. Wray, a 2017 appointee of Mr. Trump, oversaw the bureau through the Capitol riot and almost four years of FBI investigations and arrests of those who participated in the protests.

He has been scrutinized by congressional Republicans for the FBI’s lack of transparency in investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, its memo to probe the Catholic Church, the raid on Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and pursuit of pro-life activists who protested at abortion clinics.

There is no federal mandate for the FBI to vet presidential appointees, but the bureau has done so since President Eisenhower was in the Oval Office. Agents conduct interviews with a nominee’s friends, families, business associates and others to uncover anything that might prevent a nominee from being issued a security clearance.

The FBI has White House employees fill out an online questionnaire. FBI agents then perform the background check. When the background check is complete, the information they collect on the White House employee is sent to Sec D.

Sec D then reviews any uncovered criminal histories, conflicts of interest, financial problems, ties to foreign governments or other potentially disqualifying factors to determine whether to deny or approve the clearance.

Concerns have been raised about the backgrounds of some of Mr. Trump’s nominees.

Mr. Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department sex trafficking probe, but prosecutors declined to bring charges.

He was also the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation for alleged sexual misconduct, illegal drug use and accepting improper gifts. The investigation ended when he resigned from his House seat this week. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Ms. Gabbard has frequently taken political positions critics said were favorable to American adversaries, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Kennedy is a vaccine skeptic who advocates for food purity and unorthodox medical treatments. He has been mired in an extramarital sexting scandal with New York magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi, though he was joined by his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, at a Mr. Trump’s gala Thursday at Mar-a-Lago.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/nov/16/whistleblower-warns-fbi-trusted-background-checks-/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

[Body-by-Guinness]

No doubt misfiled, but given that this dismantling effort will defang the FBI and its ability to serve political masters to political ends, I am down with this approach, particularly as it will serve to fire a shot across the bow of EVERY bloated agency and serves as a model for how to combine federal efforts by function, pulling law enforcement function out of orgs that tainted by politics, or privatizes these functions.

This proposal does leave one burning question: what will happen to all those hagiographic FBI TV shows?

As that may be, these outcomes couldn’t happen to a nicer set of bastards:


Take apart the FBI, piece by piece. Here's how.

J Michael Waller
@JMichaelWaller
·
Nov 15
Take an antitrust approach to the FBI. The Bureau has value. But it has become predatory, abusive, and dangerous to the public. So it must be taken apart in favor of something new.

Here's an action plan for what to do with the FBI, drawn from chapter 37 of my book, Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains (Regnery, 2024).

The plan examines the anatomy of the FBI and proposes what to do with each part. The plan leaves room for creating better efficiencies in federal investigations, counterintelligence, law enforcement, and other essential functions. For now, we look at the FBI's structure and functions.

FBI is only a bureaucracy, not created by any law

Like the Bureau of Engraving and Printing or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the FBI, as its name states, is only a bureaucracy. J. Edgar Hoover built that bureaucracy's brand. Once we get over the brand name and stop thinking of the Bureau as "sacred," we see the emperor has no clothes.

No statutory basis exists for the FBI. The FBI has no legal charter. The FBI traces its founding to a one-page attorney general memorandum from 1908.

Therefore, the FBI can be abolished by an attorney general memorandum.
 
So how would we protect ourselves as a country without an FBI?

Take a critical look at the FBI and its components, and it's easy to see how.

FBI's basic structure

The FBI has six branches, each of which is divided into units called divisions.
The six branches are:
National Security Branch
Intelligence Branch
Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch
Science and Technology Branch
Information and Technology Branch
Human Resources Branch

These branches awkwardly make the FBI a domestic intelligence agency with police powers - a threat to our constitutional system. No other major democracy has a domestic intelligence agency with police powers.

Many FBI functions duplicate what other agencies already do. So in the interests of curbing the FBI, we have to take the imperfect approach of transferring duplicative functions to other agencies.

That approach risks empowering other problematic agencies, which we will have to deal with later.

National Security Branch

This politicized and compromised FBI branch must be broken apart, division by division, with relevant personnel, authority, equipment, and budgets transferred to other agencies and, where feasible, removed from federal authority completely and handed back to the 50 states.
Counterintelligence Division. Made notorious by its head, Peter Strzok, the Counterintelligence Division doesn't do as much spy-hunting as the FBI wants people to think. It has a poor track record. It goes after the low-hanging fruit, and is not a strategic tool to penetrate and disrupt hostile intelligence organizations from within.

Counterintelligence should be moved out of the FBI, with the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, moved out of DHS. This will be difficult, because NCSC is flaccid and politicized.

Both should be combined into an independent Counterintelligence Service (CIS) with its own ethos as a spy-hunting organization, similar to what the short-lived National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) was designed to have been.

The CIS - which does not exist - would inherit all the personnel, data, technology, and other resources of the FBI Counterintelligence Division and NCSC, retain the most capable and promising personnel, and hunt foreign spies. It would not answer to the Justice Department. DOJ would be responsible solely for prosecuting spies as CIS finds necessary.

Counterterrorism Division. Create a stand-alone counterterrorism agency that has no law-enforcement functions. Remove the Counterterrorism Division, the Terrorist Screening Center, and related elements from the FBI. At the same time, remove the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. NCTC has its own problems to be addressed.
Merge the FBI's former counterterrorism functions and resources with the NCTC into a new, small, stand-alone counterterrorist agency. The proper leadership will transform the agency ethos, cull incompetent and inefficient personnel, and build a small CT service with no law enforcement powers. At the same time, dispense with the "domestic violent extremist" approach and focus on real terrorism.

Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. The FBI's WMDD already duplicates the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives of DHS. ATF is already a significant problem. As with counterintelligence and counterterrorism, remove WMDD from the FBI, remove ATF from DHS, cull the personnel, and create a new, small, independent unit dealing with weapons of mass destruction inside the United States. The new service will have no law enforcement powers and will not answer to DOJ.

The FBI National Security Branch is thus dissolved.

Intelligence Branch

The FBI Intelligence Branch collects information and synthesizes it into analytical products and coordination with other agencies. Such a branch, with entirely different standards of evidence from a law enforcement agency, has no place in the Department of Justice at all.
Divide the Intelligence Branch and its personnel along topical and functional lines. Parcel them out to other agencies with the legal authority and obligation to perform those varied work functions. This includes the new independent counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and WMD services.

The FBI intelligence branch is thus dissolved.

Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch

This FBI branch is a mishmash of functions patchworked together since 9/11. It performs important duties, though, and does not have the reputation of being as politicized as the rest of the Bureau.

The Trump Administration can take apart this branch without public danger.

Criminal Investigation Division. This division combats organized crime, international crime, certain violent crimes under federal statute, and certain crimes against children. It also investigates public corruption, financial crimes, and violations of civil rights laws.
The public corruption unit tends to attract some of the most politicized elements of the FBI.

DOJ must transfer as many criminal investigative functions as possible to the states that wish to assume them. Those states can receive federal block grants for the purpose of improving their own capabilities, free of federal interference.

FBI's financial crimes unit should be transferred to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has robust financial crimes capabilities.
The remainder of the Criminal Investigation Division should go to the United States Marshals Service, which is the only federal law enforcement entity created by America's Founding Fathers. All FBI personnel going to the Marshals would be screened for adequacy and retrained under the Marshals ethos.

Cyber Division. Cyber is an increasingly important criminal and national security domain. Because of cyber's growing politicization, often to extremist ends, the solutions offered here are only interim.

Transfer the Cyber Division's security functions to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), while moving the very politicized CISA out of the Department of Homeland Security. The merger between CD and CISA, under proper leadership, would result in a professional, stand-alone cyber security agency. Cyber Division's intelligence functions and resources will go to the new Counterintelligence Service (CIS) created from the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and DHS's NCSC.

Cyber Division's law enforcement functions should be transferred out of DOJ to the independent U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Critical Incident Response Group. The Response portion of the branch is a crisis management unit. It should be transferred to FEMA, which itself needs a complete overhaul.

Services. The Services section of the branch assists victims of terrorism and crime. Its duties should go to FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services. The budget for this unit can go to disaster-prone states as block grants, which the states can spend on disaster relief as they see fit.

A separate unit, International Operations, coordinates federal law enforcement abroad to investigate transnational crimes and to assist foreign countries in assisting American investigators. These experienced personnel can be placed in the service of other federal agencies that presently perform law enforcement/counterterrorism/counter-WMD work abroad, or which would do so under the proposed changes.
The FBI Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch is thus dissolved.

Science and Technology Branch

This small FBI branch creates new scientific and technological methods, products, and training for the rest of the FBI's operations, and provides important support support to state and local law enforcement. Private companies already create these products and services, such as forensic sciences (fingerprint, DNA, and other biometric analysis), other scientific analysis, computer forensics, safe transport of evidence and hazardous materials. The branch also runs the FBI Crime Lab, FBI information services, and the National Crime Information Center.
In Big Intel, I proposed handing the Science and Technology Branch over to FEMA, or establishing it as a stand-alone entity under rotating governors, but after consideration, many functions of the branch should be privatized, with the Crime Lab and National Crime Information Center transferred to the US Marshals.

The FBI Science and Technology Branch is thus dissolved.

Information and Technology Branch

The purpose of this branch is to manage FBI information and maintain and upgrade the Bureau's information systems. With the FBI being dismembered, the need for this branch is mooted, though the experienced personnel, with their specialized training can be transferred to other agencies along with related FBI components.

The FBI Information and Technology Branch is thus dissolved.

Human Resources Branch

This branch will not be transferred anywhere. Its personnel will leave the federal workforce.

The exception is the FBI Academy, which resides in this branch. Since the FBI Academy offers basic training for special agents and other law enforcement, it can be transferred to the US Marshals.

The FBI Human Resources Branch is thus dissolved.

Field Offices

The FBI has 56 field offices and smaller offices across the United States. These offices have secure facilities and other resources that the Marshals, the SEC, the Postal Inspector, the new independent Counterintelligence Service, the new counterterrorism and counter-WMD services, and so forth, can use without disruption, independently and out of their own budgets. Many field offices can be shut down for good.
Unnecessary secrecy

FBI abuses of power, and threats to the Constitution, have been possible because of excessive secrecy. This unnecessary secrecy must be undone and exposed.

FBI abuses of power, and threats to the Constitution, have been possible because of excessive secrecy. This unnecessary secrecy must be undone and exposed. All citizens should have the right to any FBI files - unredacted - on them, with pending criminal or national security investigations, reviewed by judges, as the sole exceptions.

Conclusion

With these steps, the FBI is dismembered, its essential components scattered, in an orderly fashion without disruption to legitimate federal investigations, law enforcement, and national security functions.

Abolish all Special Agent in Charge and SES-level FBI positions prior to dismemberment. Sell FBI headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover Building to developers and demolish it. Surplus and sell the planned FBI campus in Prince George's County, Maryland, that is twice the size of the Pentagon building.

Complexities in the dismantling of the FBI, especially concerning the Bureau's colossal and extremely sensitive data systems, are to be expected. But these complexities are unacceptable excuses for not dismembering the Bureau quickly.

After this, we can proceed to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security.

https://x.com/jmichaelwaller/status/1857617933536542991?s=61

[Crafty_Dog]

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1863012951684186471

[Crafty_Dog]

https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1863024685157437667

[DougMacG]

https://www.racket.news/p/note-on-the-fbi

[Crafty_Dog]

https://dailycaller.com/2024/12/03/cnn-harry-enten-stunned-by-plunge-in-american-trust-in-fbi/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/fbi-surveilling-americans-financial-data-without-warrants-house

[Crafty_Dog]

TOPLINE:

With Kash Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI, an independent watchdog may soon bring needed transparency to allegations of government overreach targeting GOP congressional investigators, including Patel, probing the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe, “Crossfire Hurricane.”

The findings may tell us a lot about the power of Washington’s unelected bureaucracy.

DEEP DIVE:

There are some stories you don’t forget because of the pressure that is brought to bear on you by the government bureaucracy to walk away from the reporting.

One of those stories came in 2018, when a review of congressional emails revealed a senior justice department official Rod Rosenstein had allegedly threatened staffers on the House intelligence committee, among them Kash Patel.   

Context matters: At the time, Patel and his team were systematically dismantling the premise for the FBI’s 2016 “Crossfire Hurricane” probe that investigated alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

Because Patel had deep experience at the Justice Department, he understood and could expose defects in the surveillance (FISA) warrants for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, among other irregularities in the FBI/DOJ case.

At the time, I was the chief intelligence correspondent for Fox News based in Washington D.C. The Fox story was headlined “(Rod) Rosenstein threatened to ‘subpoena’ GOP-led committee in ‘chilling’ clash over records, emails show”

It was straightforward, document driven reporting, but the response from the DOJ was severe and, in my experience, disproportionate.  We had reviewed emails that memorialized a January 2018 closed-door meeting between senior FBI and DOJ officials and members of the House Intelligence committee.

The 2018 report read, “The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” the committee's then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel wrote to the House Office of General Counsel.”

The report continued, “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and your emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall.”

The pushback to the story was swift and severe.   Reps for the FBI and DOJ disputed the email account.   “The FBI disagrees with a number of characterizations of the meeting as described in the excerpts of a staffer’s emails provided to us by Fox News.”

“A DOJ official insisted Rosenstein ‘never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation.’ The official added that department and bureau officials in the room ‘are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false,” adding that Rosenstein was responding to a threat of contempt.’’”


My understanding of the 2018 meeting would change when new claims were made public in a 2023 lawsuit brought by Patel against FBI Director Wray and former Justice Department officials.

At the time, I was working as a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News in Washington D.C. According to the 2023 lawsuit, a subpoena for Patel’s “personal information” had already been obtained before the confrontational 2018 meeting.   

According to court records, “On November 20, 2017, while Mr. Patel was still in his role as Senior Counsel and Chief Investigator for the HPSCI (House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence), the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) secretly sought a grand jury subpoena to compel Google to turn over Mr. Patel’s private email account data. They did so in complete contravention of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees against unreasonable search and seizure.”

The lawsuit continued, “DOJ sought the subpoena for Mr. Patel’s private accounts without a legitimate basis in a chilling attempt to surveil the person leading the Legislative Branch’s investigation into the Department of Justice’s conduct during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. This was a blatant abuse and violation of the separation of powers by DOJ, a violation of Mr. Patel’s constitutional rights, and an attempt to find a way to silence an investigation into DOJ’s questionable conduct, as detailed below.  DOJ couldn’t subpoena Mr. Patel’s official accounts without sparking a public, political and legal battle; thus, they went for his personal accounts, in a non-public and unconstitutional manner, seeking dirt on Mr. Patel.”

Timing matters:  Based on the lawsuit, the DOJ sought Patel’s records BEFORE the 2018 meeting.  The lawsuit described it as a “politically motivated investigation.”

According to the 2023 lawsuit, Patel learned about the subpoena several years later, in 2022, when Google notified him the DOJ had sought information related to his personal accounts.

The court records state, “Mr. Patel was wholly unaware of this subpoena until December 12, 2022, when, in line with its policy, Google notified Mr. Patel that DOJ issued it a subpoena for information related to his personal accounts.”


In September this year, a Memorandum Opinion from the court, said the defendants motion to dismiss the complaint was granted.  Among the arguments, that these officials are “entitled to qualified immunity…”

A separate watchdog report may soon bring needed transparency to these allegations of government overreach.  In this case, claims that some senior FBI and DOJ officials abused their authority to gather information on congressional investigators scrutinizing the origins of the FBI Russia collusion probe.

I will have more to say, in the future, about my experience reporting the story and the personal blowback from government officials.

While this content is free, consider becoming a monthly member to support independent journalism and access future content.

Thank you for the consideration and, most of all, for supporting our work!

Best, Catheri

[DougMacG]

"DOJ sought the subpoena for Mr. Patel’s private accounts without a legitimate basis in a chilling attempt to surveil the person leading the Legislative Branch’s investigation into the Department of Justice’s conduct during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

  - This is not the America we think we live in or that we want to live in.

The other proposal was to close the FBI. We need a federal law enforcement agency to look at real, interstate crime. I hope they can clear out all the evil and keep all the good workers in this large federal agency.

We know a young man who works major crimes at a major FBI office and has nothing to do, I presume, with the rot at the top. The partisan, criminal, unconstitutional behavior of these people is a distraction and a hindrance to the real work that needs to be done at the agency.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://revolver.news/2024/12/dei-fbi-agent-convicted-of-robbing-people-blind-during-j6-home-raid/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4283976/posts

[Crafty_Dog]

https://x.com/julie_kelly2/status/1867269071365943683

[Crafty_Dog]

This goes deeper into the weeds than I can comprehend:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1867600933116318092.html
 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://revolver.news/2024/12/jonathan-turley-asks-the-million-dollar-question-about-all-those-j6-fbi-informants/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-fbi-official-raises-alarm-over-nominee-rooting-through-trump-files-seeking-informants/ar-AA1vRIsO?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b2b0045f975344daa712e9fbf857a93d&ei=19

[DougMacG]

https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/17/three-russia-hoax-bombshells-hidden-in-ig-report-on-doj-surveillance-of-congress/

[Body-by-Guinness]

Perhaps misfiled, but an interesting dive into the FBI's management structure, its current DEI-based dysfunction, and what Patel will have to do to change course:

What Will Kash Patel Face When He Arrives At FBI HQ On January 20, 2025?

Restructuring The Bureau To Remedy What Ails It Or Turning It Into A Vehicle To Pursue The Malfactors Inside It And Other Aligned Agencies?

The FBI where Kash Patel is set to become Director is an agency that in many respects is unlike any other agency of the federal government. Some of what I explain below has been the subject of commentary by me on X, Spaces, podcasts, and other areas where I have written or commented. But I’ve never put it down in writing all in one place.

But the way the Bureau is structured and operates is largely unknown to the public at large, and the unique qualities that apply to it make understanding the structure and operation important in seeing what it is that Kash Patel will be facing.

Sometimes I’m reluctant to go too deep into the internal mechanics of the FBI because I never worked there. I was never part of the culture no matter how many Special Agents I worked with over 20+ years, or how many I remain in contact with to this day. Occasionally I’m the recipient of communications telling me I got something a little bit wrong, but generally I think I’ve stayed within the bumpers in describing the inner workings of the Bureau as an outsider with a front-row seat for 30+ years.

Because nearly all of my interactions while at DOJ were with squad agents, my views of the Bureau tend to be SA-centric — and that means “anti-management” to a significant degree. There is — and always has been — a division between squad agents and FBI managers. An Agent’s job is an either-or proposition — you remain a working agent assigned to a “squad” with a particular area of enforcement as its priority, or you move into management and your day-to-day job involves overseeing and coordinating work done by Agents - while do almost none of that work yourself. The farther up the management ladder you climb, the farther away you get from the squads where the agents are doing the work, and the management work is “managing lower level managers.”

Over the past 11 years, after leaving DOJ, I’ve met and developed friendships with a few retired FBI senior managers. Included in the group are retired SACs — Special-Agents-In-Charge — all of whom occupied various management positions as they advanced in their careers, mostly in the 1990s and 2000s. Just about every one of them was out of the Bureau by 2012-2015, and each has similar recollections about what they saw happening in the way the Bureau changed internally in the two decades since 2000. All of them, without exception, lament what the Bureau has become — with the same refrain of “It wasn’t like that when I started.”

What happened is what Kash Patel is going to need to confront and fix. The daunting task in front of him stems from the fact that the changes in the Bureau have become nearly universal. It worked like a underground weed that spread far and wide before sprouting up through the soil to start taking over separate parts of the organization.

How did that happen? Nowhere in the Government is the phrase “personnel is policy” more true than in the FBI.

The FBI has always had a policy that Special Agent applicants must have a four year college degree and at least two years of work experience after graduation in order to apply. It is quite common for Agents to have both two and three year post-graduate degrees, and not apply to be Special Agents until their late 20s or early 30s.

The FBI does “recruit” applicants to become new agents. In the not-too-distant- past that was unnecessary as the Bureau had more than enough high quality applicants to choose from without going in search of more. But now it goes out into specific fields and makes known its interest in hiring certain kinds of individuals with specific backgrounds.

During my time in DOJ in the 1990s, the majority of new agent hires seemed to be either former military — officers — or state/local police who wanted to move into federal law enforcement. The reason I know this is because FBI Special Agents — especially new hires — rotate in and out of their first office with some regularlity. During my tenures of 10+ years each in two different DOJ offices, I met and worked with a few dozen fresh-out-of-the-Academy first office agents. In the 1990s, as Bill Clinton hollowed out the active duty military following the collapse of the Soviet Union, young officers in their late 20s who had their military careers cut short often turned to other federal employment. Many found the FBI, ATF, and DEA as comfortable landing spots.

Because the 1990s era military officers corps was a male-dominated field, as late as the mid-1990s the recruiting classes entering the FBI Academy at Quantico were 85% or more men. Because state and local law enforcement has also been a male-dominated field historically, applicants seeking to move to federal agencies also tend to be overwhelmingly men.

Here is what is unusual about the FBI Special Agent work force — the entire contingent of Special Agents turns over completely about every 25 years. Sometime in 2026-27 will come the retirement of the last Special Agents who joined the Bureau before 9/11. After that, the entire Special Agent work force will consist of people who were hired after that event. By 2030, nearly every Special Agent will have been hired after the end of the Iraq War.

This is because the FBI has retirement eligibility with immediate payment of benefits starting at age 50 if you have 25 years of service time. Also significant is the fact that retirement comes with lifetime medical benefits, and there is no reduction in the benefits for continuing to work in a private sector job. So most Agents who retire in their early 50s go on to other a second career while getting paid their full FBI retirement pay at the same time.

How is this relevant to Kash Patel? Patel is going to be taking over an organization where a large percentage of its work force, maybe approaching 75%, were hired in the past 15 years — since 2009, the first year of the first term of President Obama.

Not too far into that year the hiring priorities of most federal agencies changed, including at the FBI. Rather than continue the influx of former military, state and local law enforcement, and holders of graduate degrees in engineering, accounting, law, etc., the FBI’s recruiting was adjusted to fit the goal of achieving a work force that “looked like the population at large.” That goal supplanted other priorities that focused on recruiting the “best and brightest” as had for decades been the foundation for FBI hiring. It was sometime around 2010 that the new agents arriving in Field Offices across the country started to take on a completely different look and feel. I know — I worked with them for 3+ years and the change was clearly noticable. I also know that this change in hiring continued unabated for many years based on conversations I had with friends who were still in the FBI, many of whom retired in the ensuing years after I left. Without exception, those FBI retirees had the same view upon leaving — the Bureau they joined in the 1990s was not the same Bureau that they were leaving in the 2010s.

The problem Patel will face with the FBI work force is that the most significant component of that work force — the Special Agents — are almost entirely careerists, meaning they started with the plan of working until their retirement, and there is a huge financial incentive for them to see that plan through. They enjoy civil service protections and it is not a work force — unlike DOJ attorneys — prone to simply quitting when there is a new boss they don’t like.

The won’t quit and it is hard to fire them.

So Patel is going to have to bend them to his will in order to make the changes that need to be made.

The Special Agent work force that began to be created in 2009 was recruited more from college campuses than at any time in FBI history. That’s where a work force that “looked like the population at large” could be most easily found. Since academia has been the breeding ground for 40+ years of crusading social justice warriors — dedicated to recognizing and correcting social injustices of yesteryear more than addressing criminal conduct of yesterday and today — the new agents coming into the Bureau starting in 2010 arrived with that mindset.

But, as was explained to me by FBI Agents in a position to know, many of the new agents had post-college “work experience” with groups such as Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, Innocence Project, Justice Policy Institute, National Women’s Law Center, Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, etc. They came in trained already in how to seek out offenses involving “injustice” rather than focusing on crime.

This remained the hiring paradigm for more than a decade. But maybe even more importantly, those hires from the first few years advanced quickly through the ranks of FBI management. That’s because — for those who don’t know — the mechanism for the move to FBI management and promotion up the chain, at the lower levels, based almost entirely on “volunteerism.” For the most part, “merit” plays only a minor role. DEI hiring leads inextricably to DEI promoting. After the work force needed to mirror the community, FBI management needed to mirror the community.

Shifting into FBI management is a deliberate career choice that takes an Agent out of most of what they were taught to do at the Academy. An Agent moving to management is sent to FBI HQ for an 18 month program to learn to be a supervisor — meaning being a supervisor in the FBI isn’t just being a really good Agent.

In fact, quite the opposite is too often true. If you are an FBI Agent, and you don’t shoot that well, or you don’t really like sitting and doing surveillance for long periods of time, or you don’t like going on search warrants and spending hours cataloguing evidence, or you don’t like going through thousands of pages of financial records trying to figure out a fraud — the one way to escape all those things you don’t like is to raise your hand and volunteer to become a supervisor. The outcome is just what you expect — Agents who are not great at the actual work of being an Agent tend to move into management to escape the parts of being an Agent they didn’t like or weren’t good at.

This was a SHOCK to my system about 4 years into my job as an AUSA when a particularly bad FBI supervisor kept meddling in the decision-making in a couple of my investigations. I asked one of the Agents, “How did that guy become a supervisor, he’s an idiot.” The answer was “He raised his hand and volunteered. That’s the way they all start.” I was gobsmacked that that truism. But once I knew it, it was easy to spot.

For Patel, the problem this presents is that such supervisors tend to rise up the ranks of management until their manifest shortcomings are fully revealed. This has happened with many of that first — and even second — generation of agents who joined in the aftermath of Obama’s election. That first generation are now Agents in the middle of their careers — about 12-14 years experience — and they exist throughout middle management across the entirety of the FBI’s operations around the country. Some have gone beyond the first couple of levels of management — Squad Supervisors and ASACs — and have begun to move into more senior management positions. These are the social justice warriors committed to what you have seen the FBI become over the past 8-10 years.

One issue the lower level supervisors have tremendous direct influence over is the first level of contact in recruiting. As one agent now retired said to me about recruting from 2014 until the agent’s retirement in 2020 — “Beta males tend to recruit other Beta males because the Alphas intimidate them. And LBGTQ recruit LBGTQ because it makes them feel less out of place among the work force. That’s what the FBI work force became once members of those groups settled into positions that gave them influence over recruiting.”

Patel needs to bring an end to this and reverse course in two ways — the enforcement priorities need to change completely, and the work force needs to return to being based on the “best and brightest” the FBI can attract to do THAT job.

Changing the enforcement priorities is the easy part. Those are policy driven and will come to the FBI from both the White House and DOJ. We won’t be seeing any more surveillance of school board meetings or criminal prosecutions of abortion protesters who pray outside the entrance to clinics. The Civil Rights Division of DOJ is going to be turned around 180 degrees and the FBI investigations on civil rights issues that do not comport with the new Civil Rights Division priorities will be closed.

The abuses in the intelligence gathering by the FBI and other parts of the IC community over the past 10 years will likely result in Patel — himself a victim of such efforts — taking steps to severely limit what will be allowed to continue. At the same time a comprehensive analysis will likely be done as to whether intelligence gathering domestically — to the extent it is allowed at all — should be moved to an agency without law enforcement responsibility. Intelligence is to inform decision-making by policy makers — not as a directional device to steer law enforcement in the direction of suspected law breakers. When the latter is allowed, the temptation to abuse that power is simply too great to resist. That is how we find ourselves where we are today.

“Domestic terrorism” — meaning by citizens and not foreign invaders — has always been a police responsibility. It is nothing more than violent crime. Most domestic terrorism “crimes” are violations of state laws at the same time. Using the massive intelligence gathering capacity of the federal government — often leveraging Big Tech to assist — all for the purpose of interdicting the commission of state crimes, has come with a price to liberty I don’t think the majority of citizens are willing to continue to pay.

The way Patel addresses the work force problem is more complicated and will take more time.

Without question, in my opinion he should push out pretty much every member of the “Senior Executive Service” — the very top of FBI management — who don’t retire ahead of his arrival. These are the individuals who have had final decision-making authority on everything the past 8 years, and no one gets to SES without FBI and DOJ approval at the very top. None can be trusted because simply getting to where they are makes them suspect.

The next line of forced retirements should be any Assistant Directors who are not yet SES. The general line of authority in an FBI Field Office is:

Assistant Director (ADIC)→ Special Agent in Charge (SAC) →Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) → Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) → Squad Agents.

Not every office has an ADIC, and some offices have more than one SAC. It all depends on the Office’s size and the nature of the enforcement responsibilities given to the Office.

FBI HQ has different titles for these various positions — it has Assistant Directors, but after that the titles change — Unit Chiefs, Section Chiefs, etc.

SACs have always been hand-picked by the Director, with input and recommendations coming from his immeidate subordinates. So every SAC sitting in a Field Office was put there by Wray, and they were selected because of upper management’s satisfaction with that individual’s performance at lower levels.

Turning over all those positions will take more time because replacements need to be identified before you decapitate a Field Office by ushering the SAC into early retirement. But this is the level where Patel needs to build loyalty, and demand fidelity to the new enforcement priorities. In addition, it will be the SACs who will be responsible for uncovering the problems in the Special Agent work force — Agents who might be resisters but will likely be keeping their heads down and trying to wait out the storm. Wrong choices for SAC positions is a mistake that will entrench a resistance to changes and provide cover to those parts of the work force that need to go.

As for the Special Agent work force, two changes will lead to some early departures — before having to go to the step of pushing people to leave.

First, some will simply not be on board with new enforcement priorities and will will be early enough in his/her career that leaving to take a job more in line with their personal beliefs will be seen as a positive move. They will resign voluntarily.

Others who are viewed as being likely internal dissenters can simply be subject to the oldest FBI management trick in the book — put them on a squad doing work that is absolutely the last thing they want to do. Make is so they loath coming to work every day because of that. That will likely impact their job performance and chances for advancement. Eventually, a large portion of those individuals will depart.

What is not going to be possible is simply firing people for having political views different from the new management. But the enforcement of internal policies and Hatch Act limitations on overt displays of political bias — like kneeling for BLM protesters — will be the kind of things that land an Agent in a disciplinary review. Elimination of all the DEI nonsense as part of the day-to-day working environment will focus attention back on performance metrics geared to law enforcement and the “non-hackers” will stand out. There will be no administrative safe haven for “protected classes” from being bad at their jobs — everyone must be measured by the same standards. It’s really not hard to spot ineffective Special Agents — they keep asking the same questions and you keep giving the same answers, yet they never seem to finish their investigations.

But, where the real struggle is going to come, and the part of changing the workforce culture that will take the longest time, is to create a whole new class of those first level supervisors — the Supervisory Special Agents who manage the individual squads in each field office. They are the main points of contact for management with the squad agents doing the work, and they are most capable of mischief and derailing the careers of the best agents — which bad SSAs are prone to do. This is the level where the worst managers are typically found.

There are hundreds of such SSAs throughout the 54 Field Offices and smaller branch offices that are part of each Field Office. Not only will it take much time to root out the worst ones, that is only half the battle. Convincing more competent squad agents to apply to take those positions, after all that has happened internally over the past 15 years, is going to be Patel’s biggest challenge if he is going to remake the workforce and change the culture. Those first level supervisors are the FBI’s upper management 6-10 years from now.

It’s a daunting task. Taking a wrecking ball to the current internal structure is only half the solution. Fixing what is broken by introducing hundreds of new management personnel into the ranks, while at the same time working to cull the resistance from among the Special Agent work force will be the more lasting legacy of what Patel leaves behind when his time is done.

https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/what-will-kash-patel-face-when-he?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2y55S2nH91YONuaS_0v_eJlKTauIysMl2Uq3f9MirPAyjB4f8Gx7yrnA0_aem_rwsTs4ZvxnGCknGt-YpO5w&triedRedirect=true

[Crafty_Dog]

Very good article and a good thread for it.

[DougMacG]

Let me get this straight... a white FBI Director (Chris Wray) gets fired and replaced by a brown minority Director (Kash Patel) and members of the FBI's DEI office are now protesting and threatening to resign? 🤡

The irony is ALMOST too good to be true. 😂

(photo of Kash Patel)

https://twitter.com/DschlopesIsBack/status/1874281356504818098

[Crafty_Dog]

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4287811/posts

[Crafty_Dog]

A barricade stopped Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s vehicle after a deadly rampage down Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Wednesday. Despite New Year’s revelry and a major college football game, the FBI special agent in charge was out of town. ASSOCIATED PRESS

INTELLIGENCE

FBI agents eager for new leadership after terror attack

Decorum, procedures breached

By Kerry Picket THE WASHINGTON TIMES

FBI agents say the bureau’s initial response to the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans’ French Quarter was disastrous and another reason the Senate can’t move fast enough to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the agency.

Several agents who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the FBI failed to execute a comprehensive counterterrorism plan when Shamsud-Din Jabbar of Texas, an Army veteran, rammed a pickup truck carrying an ISIS flag into revelers, killing 14 and wounding dozens.

They said the top FBI official on the scene broke with decorum and that the bureau failed to follow basic procedures.

Agents wondered why Lyonel Myrthil, the special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI office, did not appear to be on duty at the time of the attack despite what should have been a heightened alert for New Year’s Eve celebrations and a college football playoff game scheduled at the city’s Superdome on New Year’s Day.

The agents blamed poor leadership by outgoing FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy

▶ Truck attacker visited New Orleans twice prior. A7

Exclusive

Director Paul Abbate.

Mr. Abbate is poised to become acting director after Mr. Wray resigns, which he said he will do before Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

“They need to go right now, not only Wray, but Abbate needs to go. This is awful. This is embarrassing. Kash Patel is the person to have in there,” said an agent, referring to Mr. Trump’s nominee for FBI director. “He needs to come right now, right away, because these people have to leave.”

The New Orleans FBI office sent Alethea Duncan, assistant special agent in charge, to the first press conference after the attack.

Wearing khakis, a blue polo shirt and a nose ring, Ms. Duncan immediately contradicted New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who said at the press conference that her city was “impacted by a terrorist attack.”

Ms. Duncan stepped forward after the city’s police chief spoke and said, “This is not a terrorist event. What it is right now is there were improvised explosive devices that were found, and we are working on confirming if it is viable or not.”

Hours later, the FBI declared that the attack was being investigated as a terrorist incident.

Rank-and-file FBI agents were taken aback by Ms. Duncan’s presentation and comments.

“The new FBI management has to put in basic decorum rules because the bureau should look like the ‘Men in Black,’ that they’re all uniform — that they’re transparent,” an FBI agent said.

He said the public should “see the bureau, not somebody with a ring in their nose. Who the hell would go on TV with a ring in their nose?” another agent said. “Who the hell would ever say it’s not a terrorist event when there’s an ISIS flag flying on the back of a truck? They call that a clue.”

“You have two major events going on — the Sugar Bowl and New Year’s Eve — and the SAC is out of town. That’s why she is out there,” said another FBI agent. “They left nobody in charge.”

Another agent expressed no surprise at Ms. Duncan’s assessment because the attack didn’t fit the FBI leadership’s current definition of terrorism.

“It ain’t terrorism unless they have a MAGA hat on. For the last three years, all of the new agents, that’s all they know. It’s going after the right-wing or Trump supporters,” the agent said. “This is endemic with the headquarters.”

The agent added, “This is what happens when all you do are Jan. 6 cases.”

Other agents were perplexed as to why Jabbar’s Texas residence was left accessible to the public, including reporters from the New York Post and ABC News 13, after an FBI search.

The FBI and Harris County Sheriff’s Office searched Jabbar’s home on Wednesday. Officers arrived at about 3 p.m., and the FBI said agents left at 7:50 a.m. on Thursday.

Law enforcement reportedly found precursor chemicals that could be used in explosives.

ABC News 13 reported on Thursday that the front door to his mobile home was left open and the frame was barely connected to the structure.

“You can’t search a house and then just leave it open. You have to secure it to protect the things from third parties. They didn’t do that,” one of the FBI agents said.

“They went and did a search warrant, they left inventory, and then it looks like they let the reporter in, but what it appears to be is that the FBI didn’t secure the residence after the search warrant as they’re supposed to,” he said. “They failed basic parts of a search warrant.”

The Washington Times reached out to the FBI headquarters for comment.

[DougMacG]

https://www.racket.news/p/why-is-russiagates-origin-story-redacted

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/01/06/fbi_is_still_hiding_details_of_russiagate_newly_released_document_shows_1082631.html