FBI Stories

Conservatives who criticize the behavior  of the FBI in its investigations of Trump and his campaign and associates often  go out of their way to praise the bureau and its agents in general and to say that what went on with Trump was a single anomaly. There is reason for skepticism on that.

In the 1960’s the FBI spied on and wiretapped Martin Luther King. Whether or not there was enough reason to suspect some of the leftists around King were Soviet agents to justify the surveillance, King’s adulteries and drinking had nothing to do with national security.  It is hard to justify their being including in the files and reports at all, much less being made a major part of them.  People who have said the bureau was more interesting in damaging King and his cause (or even blackmailing him) than in looking for communist spies have reasons for thinking it.

 Later in the decade in its Cointelpro operations, the FBI cracked down hard on the Black Panthers and various leftist and anti-war groups.  Some of the targets were criminals or enemy agents, but many were innocent Americans  whose politics and attitudes offended the people running  the bureau and their bosses.

By 1992 it was “gun nuts” and “right wing extremists” who were more likely to be unpopular with those running the government.  In rural Idaho government agents attacked the home of a man named Randy Weaver (supposedly over a bench warrant for a minor violation of gun laws), killed a 14 year old boy and a dog, and began a siege.  An FBI sniper killed Weaver’s wife while she was holding  her baby. Weaver eventually surrendered and was arrested.  The government tried to railroad Weaver and put the  blame for all that had happened  on him, but he was lucky enough to have a talented and well known lawyer  become interested in his case and was acquitted. Later a local prosecutor tried  to charge the killer of Weaver’s wife, but the case was moved to a federal court and dismissed. The government paid Weaver and a friend who helped him over three million dollars to settle a suit over its wrongdoing. 

Then there is the recent business with Trump. Whatever one thinks of Trump, high officials at the FBI did inexcusable and probably illegal things in spying on him and his campaign, and we have not heard of  members of the supposedly upright  rank and file of the bureau having blown  any whistles or raised any flags about it.

There is a proper place for an FBI – doing counterintelligence work against foreign agents  and terrorists, investigating multi-state crimes and frauds,  working cases of crimes on federal property, and investigating violations of civil rights by state and local officials,  for example.  However we do not need a national police, and we certainly do not need a national secret political police.  

Republicans tend to excuse or ignore  things such as Cointelpro, while Democrats tend to excuse  or ignore  things such as the attacks on Weaver and his family. Both are wrong.  The FBI is too powerful, too nearly exempt from liability for its misdeeds, and too political and has been for years. It needs to be reformed, and the range of its activities needs to decrease.