A report published by The Washington Times holds some seriously disturbing news about the FBI, the federal law enforcement unit that has been under the microscope recently due to its perceived bias during the Trump years and reports that it was involved in setting up conservatives in both the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case and the Capitol riot.
According to that report, of the 353 “sensitive” FBI cases that were audited, there were a whopping 747 “compliance errors.” Yes, there were about two errors per case on average.
The report, describing what activities those errors included, wrote that “These errors included agents’ failure to obtain approval from senior FBI officials to start an investigation, failure to document a necessary legal review before opening an investigation and failure to tell prosecutors what they were doing.”
Describing the sort of cases in which the FBI broke the rules, the Washington Times reported that:
A majority of the cases studied, 191, involved domestic public officials. Dozens of cases involved religious organizations or their prominent members, and dozens of cases involved domestic political organizations and individuals. Ten cases involved domestic political candidates, and 11 cases involved news media.
Well, two senators, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were none too pleased by that report. Savaging FBI Director Christopher Wray in a letter, they wrote:
“These widespread and apparently systemic violations of approval and notification requirements make clear that the FBI has failed to rigorously adhere to the DIOG. The sheer number of FBI investigations that failed to comply with the DIOG’s rules suggests a pattern and practice of evading the rules, which consequently opens the door for political and other improper considerations to infect the investigative decision-making process.”
Similarly, in a letter to Inspector General Horowitz, the two again savaged the FBI and demanded that its activities be investigated, writing:
“Due to the nature of their subjects, these investigations present heightened constitutional and civil liberties concerns and therefore merit greater scrutiny and supervision. Accordingly, we ask that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) perform an additional audit of the FBI’s compliance with the DIOG’s requirements for conducting SIMs. Among other things, the audit should address the FBI’s compliance with relevant requirements during SIMs pending from July 2019 to the present day, including additional SIM-related guidance and requirements imposed by the FBI in response to OIG’s December 2019 report regarding Crossfire Hurricane.”
So, the FBI was conducting some very sensitive investigations of public officials, the media, religious figures, and others who should receive more than a bit of protection given their status and the 1st Amendment-protected nature of their activities, yet it didn’t follow some very reasonable rules.
That should, at the very least, lead to an investigation: why was the FBI not following the rules for such sensitive investigations? How was it able to get away with doing so?
The FBI needs to be held accountable. It’s a good sign that a bipartisan group of senators are finally stepping up and taking action.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.
This story syndicated with permission from Will, Author at Trending Politics