Paul Callan, CNN: Trump is right about the FBI
The ferocity of President Donald Trump's recent attacks on the integrity of the FBI has sent shock waves through an agency accustomed to public adulation in recent years. Sadly, much of the presidential criticism of the bureau may be entirely legitimate.
The FBI has traditionally enjoyed a highly favorable reputation among a majority of the nation's citizens. Despite controversial programs that sometimes employed illegal forms of surveillance and enforcement methods -- such as those used on black citizens lawfully protesting racial segregation, individuals in the "red scare" of the 1950s and long-haired students and others protesting the war in Vietnam during the 1960s and '70s -- this reputation endured.
And American presidents continued to steadfastly defend the bureau -- that is, until now.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: The Justice Department's inspector general's report on the FBI is coming out in a few months .... it is only then that we will know if President Trumps' criticisms of the FBI leadership have been justified.
Update: Speaking of the FBI .... this does not make former FBI Director Comey look good .... Jailed pervert Anthony Weiner had CLASSIFIED emails belonging to wife Huma Abedin on his laptop – which the FBI seized after he sexted 15-year-old girl (Daily Mail). This release appears to show violations in the handling of classified material .... so why did the former FBI Director say that there were no violations?
"It's hard to remember in these days of conservatives demanding that the FBI be disbanded because they are a bunch of left wing commies who put their thumbs on the scale for their queen, Hillary Clinton, but four days before the election, this article came out. I wrote about it at the time hitting Comey hard for succumbing to pressure from these Clinton haters, who were characterized as considering her the antichrist:
ReplyDelete"Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent."
https://digbysblog.blogspot.ca/2017/12/remember-trumplandia-that-was-how.html?m=1
"During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.
Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role."
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html