FBI's reputation crumbles with Clinton email fumble: Glenn Reynolds
Like the IRS and the Secret Service, more and more of the federal government is no longer trustworthy or competent.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
12:03 p.m. EDT July 6, 2016
usatoday.com
“I’d rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother in the FBI.” That quote from the Alabama Securities Commissioner appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in 1980, referencing the feds’ unwillingness to go after financial criminals. But it’s a sentiment that may be shared by a lot of people given the FBI’s recent record.
Bureau Director James Comey’s press conference, in which he laid out an extended record of misconduct by Hillary Clinton, but then announced that he wouldn’t recommend prosecuting her, was just the latest in a series of very visible FBI failures.
The FBI had interviewed deceased Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, after being warned by the Russian government that he was a threat, but still did nothing. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured as a result. The FBI also investigated in advance, but failed to prevent mass shootings by Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hassan and Arkansas shooter Carlos Bledsoe.
The FBI made a ”mistake” in the background check for Charleston mass shooter Dylann Roof. As the Washington Post reported, “Comey said Roof should have been prevented from buying the .45-caliber weapon used in the shooting, which authorities have said was motivated by Roof’s racist views. The political repercussions of the June 17 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston led South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds Friday.” Said Comey, “The thought that an error on our part is connected to this guy’s purchase of a gun that he used to slaughter these good people is very painful to us.”
It was also painful to the families of the 9 people who were killed.
And the FBI was warned about Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, but not only did he manage to kill 49 people after the FBI determined that he was “not a threat,” the FBI somehow managed to ”lose” Mateen’s wife (and possible accomplice) after the shooting took place. And now it turns out that the Bureau asked Florida agencies that dealt with the Orlando shooting to stonewall records requests from news media about what happened.
This has to be very painful to the many hardworking non-political people at the FBI. The Bureau has always had the reputation of employing first-rate worker bees, but suffering from politicized shenanigans at the top. But a fish rots from the head, and it’s hard to see how the sort of high-level assault on the rule of law that Comey’s decision involved can fail to trickle down, with the Bureau’s reputation among Americans in general inevitably, and justifiably, suffering.
In this, of course, the FBI is just one of many federal agencies whose reputation for professionalism has taken a hit during the Obama years. The IRS, complicit in targeting Tea Party groups for their political views, is one. The Secret Service, which has figured in numerous sexual scandals and failures to protect, is another. And, in fact, the notion of a “nonpartisan” and competent civil service has taken quite a knock, as one agency after another has seemed ready, willing, and able to be compromised by politics.
Politicians have a short-term focus, seldom looking past the next election. But for those of us with a longer view, this is a serious problem. As an article in The Atlantic recently noted, trust in government is collapsing around the world. The reason for this, I’m afraid, is that government isn’t trustworthy. We used to try to do better in the United States, but lately the powers-that-be seem to be rubbing our noses in their untrustworthiness, and their ability to avoid the consequences. This, I predict, will not end well.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. |
