The FBI raid on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansionhas led Americans to believe that this unrestrained federal agency is suddenly a democracy. I am afraid that it will be a threat to In fact, theFBI has been involved inpolitics since his 1930s inception. It has a long and scarred history of resorting to deception, violence, and lawless methods to pursue its partisan goals. was a long time ago. When Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND), an isolationist unpopular with the FDR administration, criticized the military industry's role in shaping U.S. foreign policy, the FBI made Nye's life miserable. , opened his email and searched (in vain) for evidence. criminal activity.
During the 1948 presidential election, as noted by Vox, the FBI asked Republican candidate Thomas E. Leaked information about past relationships. Republicans tried to use this information to hurt Truman, but he won.
The FBI made Dr. Martin Luther King a prime political target during the civil rights era. At one point, the agency even threatened to expose what they said was proof of King's marital infidelity, suggesting that the only solution was suicide. , lamented the FBI's surveillance and raids on civil rights leaders, feminists and leftists in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 2015, his then FBI Director James Comey said: evoked King's persecution for claiming to I have a different agency now. Comey said he had a letter to Hoover from Attorney General Robert F. to do so,” he said. Unfortunately it didn't work.
Under Comey's direction, FBI agents deliberately served as a tool to identify rival Donald Trump as a Russian co-conspirator in the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. It was a purely political hit job.
Trump called his FBI "a disgrace to our nation." That's the truth today. However, the Church Commission, formed in 1975 to investigate misconduct by U.S. intelligence agencies, came to a similar conclusion. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of a permanent U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Unfortunately, Congressional oversight has proven insufficient to prevent partisan abuse.
Just ask Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Grassley. In July, Grassley issued a statement to suppress a Hunter Biden laptop investigation,. I knew it would be gone. According to Grassley, "Some of his FBI agents who intervened in the 2016 election intervened again in 2020."
The FBI raid on former president raises the question: Can the FBI escape a third time?
53} After the raid, Grassley warned that Americans would stop trusting the FBI unless it "eradicated" the "political biases that influenced their most sensitive investigations."It has already happened. Even before the Mar-a-Lago raid, a May poll put him at a staggering 47% who distrusted the FBI.That means crime victims and witnesses are reluctant to contact authorities, jurors doubt her FBI agent's testimony, and public safety is compromised.
What's the remedy? The FBI's powers and mandate are too broad. Congress can fix it. Congress created the agency by law and strengthened its powers under the Patriot Act after the 9/11 attacks. The FBI's investigative powers, or domestic surveillance to protect national security, should be removed from the FBI's law enforcement operations and placed elsewhere in the executive branch. That way we can prevent the FBI's dirty tricks from destroying fair elections.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lieutenant Governor of New York.
