Ever since changes were made after 9/11, the FBI has become a political weapon, used to beat ideological opponents into submission. For the sake of truth and justice, we must pray for reform.

From WORLD. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is America’s premiere law enforcement agency. It boasts sweeping investigative authority in many areas, ranging from domestic terrorism to civil rights. It’s also an intelligence agency and can apply for warrants to wiretap American citizens via the special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Given these vast powers, the FBI could inflict enormous harm if weaponized for political ends.

View Comments (30)

Critics say that’s already happened. …

Mueller’s overreach

Jim Long’s phone pinged. Long, a retiree living in Mission Viejo, Calif., received a simply worded text message about the agency he once worked for.

“The FBI is corrupt,” the text said.

The message came from a former colleague and friend who had just retired. Confused, Long wondered what had happened. It took him less than 30 seconds on his computer to discover the cause of his friend’s cryptic text: Dozens of federal agents had surrounded another home, at an address with a bit more prestige than the Houcks’: Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s South Florida estate.

“My first response was, ‘This is a terrible day for democracy,’” says Long, who served in the FBI from 1998 to 2018. But he was not surprised. “I saw it coming.”

Long is among a group of retired agents who say the FBI is already both politicized and weaponized. They trace the roots of these problems to the massive reorganization undertaken by former Director Robert Mueller after 9/11. Citing an avalanche of intelligence failures leading up to the attacks, critics demanded reform. Mueller decided the answer was centralized control from Washington, D.C.

For most of its history, FBI operations revolved around 56 field offices. Mueller’s predecessor, Director Louis Freeh, started his career as an FBI field agent and supported the agency’s long-standing office-of-­origin system. …

Mueller, by contrast, was a former federal prosecutor who had never served in the FBI. That showed in the way he approached the reorganization, Long says. “Mueller felt like headquarters knew better than anybody, and he did not trust the agents on the streets of any field office.”

Mueller created what are called flying squads, Long says: “When there was a big case, he would fly a squad in from headquarters rather than use the boots on the ground.”

Long emphasizes that his views are his own and do not represent the FBI, but he is not alone in his thinking. Kurt Siuzdak, who retired from the FBI last year, now runs a law firm representing FBI whistleblowers. He says Mueller began hiring non-FBI agents for important functions such as liaising with the public and with congressional offices. The end result of his reorganization was a cultural shift within the agency. “The politics became more important than real world investigative experience,” Siuzdak says. …

These trends accelerated under Mueller’s successor, James Comey, who took office in 2013. Three retired agents interviewed for this story all pinpointed a single day when they knew the FBI had lost its way: July 5, 2016.

That was the day Comey announced Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted over her private email server. …

Politicized investigations

It’s normal for politics to influence the FBI’s work to some extent. …

But while a limited degree of politicization is ­perhaps unavoidable, managers at FBI headquarters have in recent years crossed new lines.

Take, for instance, Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. In a lengthy report, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz describes some of the abuses committed during that operation: Agents failed to follow the most basic ­procedures and misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court in its application for a ­wiretap warrant. …

More recently, the FBI’s Washington headquarters has been running the investigations into the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Nearly 1,000 people have been prosecuted for various crimes connected with that day. The House whistleblower report says the D.C. headquarters asked field offices to open cases related to Jan. 6 but in reality are running every aspect of the investigation. This runs contrary to standard practice. According to the report, one whistleblower said, “The manipulative case file practice creates false and misleading crime statistics. Instead of hundreds of investigations stemming from a single black swan incident at the Capitol, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic ­violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.”

Put plainly, whistleblowers say the FBI is cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism.

Siuzdak agrees in principle that only a small fraction of Jan. 6 protesters meant harm, but the Capitol melee still broke his heart. Siuzdak was working at the FBI office in New Haven, Conn., that day. “I was in tears,” he says. He believes FBI agents in D.C. should have gone out to defend the Capitol. Still, Siuzdak ­considers current DOJ prosecution of Jan. 6 offenders overkill. “There were definitely people in that group actively seeking to do something bad. They had helmets and they had bottles of mace and they were in formation. Those people are dangerous.”

While such people should face criminal charges, he says, the majority were mere trespassers. …

How are you praying for the FBI? Share your prayers and scriptures below.

(Excerpt from WORLD. Photo Credit: Canva)