Speaking to a panel of House lawmakers last week, former FBI agents Thomas J. Baker and Nicole Parker explained how Americans have “lost faith” in the investigative agency.
“I spent many years with the FBI and am deeply troubled by this loss of faith,” said Baker in a prepared statement. “Specific lapses have come to light, many of which will be focused on by this panel. But why did they happen? What changed? The answer begins days after the 9/11 attacks.”
The former FBI agents’ testimony represents the first hearing held by the newly-formed House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. As I wrote last month, the panel aims to investigate a range of partisan-seeming probes in an effort to shed light on the Biden Administraiton’s weaponization of the federal government. With subpoena power and access to the same data available to the Intelligence Committee, the panel will delve into ongoing criminal investigations including the August 2022 raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and Trump’s role in the January 6th Capitol attack.
Changes within the FBI began with Robert Mueller, who was appointed to lead the agency in September 2001 just days after the 9/11 terror attack, explained Baker. Mueller was “humiliated” by then-President George W. Bush’s demand that he prevent another terror attack and “resolutely set about to change the FBI ‘culture.’”
This so-called culture change included new “recruiting practices” such as lowered “eligibility requirements,” said Parker.
Unfortunately, the agents themselves had no ability to stop Mueller as they were not permitted to let their personal views affect their actions during an investigation.
“It’s as if there became two FBIs. Americans see this, and it is destroying the bureau’s credibility, causing Americans to lose faith in the agency and therefore the hardworking and highly ethical agents who still do the heavy lifting and pursue noble causes,” said Baker, who worked as a special agent for over 30 years.
The perfect example is the FBI’s controversial use of a FISA warrant to monitor ex-Trump advisor Carter Page. As related previously, the agency used the Clinton-funded, bogus Steele dossier to obtain the warrant and was later proven to have lied about the document’s authenticity.
“The use of FISA against a US citizen…presents a fundamental threat to Americans’ civil liberties,” argued Baker. “It essentially suspends the Constitution.”
“America’s not America if you have a Justice Department that treats people differently under the law,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) last year following the release of a whistleblower-informed report authored by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. “That’s not happening and we know it’s not happening because 14 brave FBI agents came to us as whistleblowers and told us what exactly is going on here. “
As chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan is the de facto head of the panel on partisan weaponization.
The 2022 report described the FBI as a “political institution” with a “woke, leftist agenda” and accused it of maintaining a “secret partnership with Facebook.”
This accusation was proven true when the agency was found partially responsible for Facebook’s decision to censor the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story. The FBI’s actions may have influenced the 2020 presidential election and the agency now faces a lawsuit over its failure to disclose conversations with Facebook and other tech companies.
Another whistleblower whose testimony was included in the 2022 report told lawmakers the agency decided to abandon all child sex abuse investigations in order to focus on the January 6th Capitol attack.
The FBI is known to have taken action to silence dissent related to its investigation of the January 6th event – even going so far as to suspend the security clearances of a decorated agent who was brave enough to complain about the agency’s lack of transparency regarding its knowledge of the event. At least two FBI agents who attended to riot while on leave were suspended from the agency indefinitely even though they had not been charged with a crime.
Source: https://punchingbagpost.com/ex-fbi-agents-decry-bureaus-partisanship-and-weaponization/
