The FBI and Me

The news about the FBI seems to speak for itself. It is hard  avoid the conclusion that  the bureau is to some degree a corrupt, politically biased organization which should not be trusted in matters connected with politics.  From the treatment of the various cases concerning  Hillary Clinton, to Mueller’s  and Comey’s behavior, to the business about fabricating an “insurance policy” against Trump,  to the recent disgraceful stuff in the trial of the Bundys, the recent evidence seems fairly clear.

This leaves open the question of how well the FBI does in cases without a connection to politics. One incident proves nothing about that, but my only interaction with the FBI of the Obama years is interesting. A few years ago my brother, another nephew, and I learned  that a widowed, childless aunt of ours in her nineties had been cheated out of many thousands of dollars by fake lotteries and other mail, phone, and internet scams.  (We found no evidence of money going to Nigerian princes, but there were things of that sort.)

We reported it to the local police. They sent an officer to talk to her, but since all the places she had sent money were out of state, all he could do was advise her to stop falling for scams. We made contact with people at the FBI and, as they instructed, sent them evidence including proof of transactions with amounts and dates and the names and addresses of places  our aunt had sent money. That was it. After that we never heard from them – no phone calls, letters, emails or anything.  If our aunt heard anything, she never mentioned it. As far as we know, the whole thing was just dropped without even the courtesy of  telling us so.

I have no way of knowing if this is unusual or typical.