That’s the proud motto of the FBI and for decades it’s an image that many people around the world have believed to be entirely deserved.
Hollywood has certainly helped: while it loves to portray the CIA as ruthless and duplicitous, it promotes the FBI – whether defeating the Mob in The Untouchables, serial killers in Silence of the Lambs or Ku Klux Klan murderers in Mississippi Burning – as the dark-suited and tireless champions of law enforcement, even-handed and impartial.
Just give me the facts, ma’am.
That reputation has been shaken in recent years and it may yet be completely shattered as the bureau faces perhaps the biggest crisis of confidence in its history.
Can the organization that charged mob-handed into Mar-a-Lago to search Donald Trump’s Florida home for evidence of classified White House papers possibly be the same outfit that allegedly told its agents to hold off investigating Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop for months?
And if they are the same organization – and we now know that of course they are – can they seriously still make that bombastic claim – Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity – which sits below the scales of justice on their seal?
Fidelity, some ask, to whom exactly?
The Republicans are certainly asking that question and they say that a shocking number of FBI whistleblowers are coming forward with claims that they have been politicized by bosses in cahoots with the Democrats and their media allies.
Can the organization that charged mob-handed into Mar-a-Lago to search Donald Trump’s Florida home for evidence of classified White House papers possibly be the same outfit that allegedly told its agents to hold off investigating Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop for months?
While Republican politicians won’t share too many specifics about the whistleblowers to protect their identity, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, Ranking Member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told DailyMail.com that the allegations shared with Congress indicate a level of ‘corruption’ within the FBI and Department of Justice that needs to be ‘exposed.’
Johnson spokeswoman Alex Henning said: ‘We do have people of integrity that are concerned about the credibility of their agency and they’re coming forward.’
‘The only way to restore credibility to these agencies is if we expose the corruption and hold people accountable.’
Senator Chuck Grassley, Mr. Johnson’s opposite number on the Judiciary Committee, also says he has heard from several ‘highly-credible’ bureau whistleblowers alleging there was an attempt within the FBI to downplay or discredit negative information about Hunter Biden.
It was Sen. Grassley who – acting on whistleblower information – over the summer accused senior FBI agent Timothy Thibault of political partisanship both on social media and in his work, in particular sabotaging the continuing investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
‘The volume and consistency of these allegations substantiate their credibility and necessitate this letter,’ he bluntly told FBI Directory Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland in July.
Thibault, who retired in August soon after the allegations were made, was formerly in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office covering the capital and northern Virginia.
It was Sen Grassley who – acting on whistleblower information – over the summer accused senior FBI agent Timothy Thibault (above) of political partisanship both on social media and in his work, in particular sabotaging the continuing investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Sen. Grassley alleged that Thibault had sought to portray verifiable evidence related to the Hunter Biden investigation as disinformation, and alleged that Thibault had ordered agents to close ‘a stream of information related to Hunter Biden’ and mark it in a way within internal systems that would prevent it from being reopened.
Sen. Grassley said whistleblowers also informed him that Thibault was assisted by FBI analyst Brian Auten who tried to falsely label reports about Hunter as ‘disinformation’ in an attempt to bury derogatory information’ about him.
Auten has reportedly been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review over his role in the FBI’s controversial investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. (And the head of that investigation, Peter Strzok, was sacked over his own vitriolic anti-Trump tweets).
Sen. Grassley claims Thibault closed a separate investigation into Hunter, the President’s only surviving son, in October 2020 ‘without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines’.
Thibault was one of 13 assistant special agents assigned to investigate the Hunter Biden laptop saga and was removed from the supervisory role by FBI Director Christopher Wray last month after agency whistleblowers shed light on an alleged pattern of political bias from multiple high-ranking officials.
Thibault’s lawyers say he was never in charge of the Hunter Biden investigation and will be fully exonerated. FBI chief Christopher Wray has admitted that he found Thibault’s reported social media posts attacking the Trump administration ‘deeply troubling’. On Twitter, Thibault retweeted a post that called Trump ‘a psychologically broken, embittered and deeply unhappy man’.
The FBI, Sen Grassley noted pointedly to Wray and the Attorney General ‘answers to Congress and the American people’.
The revelations about FBI political bias came as Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, when asked whether his social media site had ‘censored’ the news about the Biden laptop, admitted the FBI – which had initially declined to take possession of the computer – had warned him about misinformation.
Both Facebook and Twitter initially banned sharing of the story. ‘It sucks,’ said Zuckerberg weakly of suppressing a story that some Republicans believe could have changed the election result.
Auten has reportedly been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz (above) referred him for disciplinary review over his role in the FBI’s controversial investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.
The head of the Trump collusion investigation, Peter Strzok (above), was sacked over his own vitriolic anti-Trump tweets
The contents of that computer – abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware and first revealed by the New York Post in October 2020 – have thrown up endless embarrassment for the Bidens that would have been greatly amplified if most of the US media hadn’t conveniently chosen to ignore them.
Instead, the allegations – which included bombshell claims that Joe Biden was aware of his son’s suspect foreign business dealings and even put pressure on Ukrainian officials to sack a prosecutor investigating an energy company in which Hunter was involved – were widely dismissed as Kremlin disinformation. Both Joe and Hunter Biden deny there was ever any conflict of interest. It took the self-regarding New York Times until spring 2022 to announce it had investigated the laptop story and concede it was substantially true.
Senator Johnson says his whistleblowers told him that local FBI chiefs told underlings, ‘You will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop’ and that the FBI is ‘not going to change the outcome of the election again’ – a reference, clearly, to ex-Director James Comey’s announcement just days before the 2016 election that they were investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
A walking political disaster zone, Hunter Biden continues to throw up new nightmares for his father and his friends in the media. Last week, it was revealed that the FBI interviewed at length a former business partner of Hunter named Tony Bobulinski 11 days before the 2020 election.
Bobulinski, a former decorated US Navy officer and not an easy man to dismiss as a Kremlin stooge, claimed Joe Biden was the man identified as the ‘Big Guy’ in an email that allegedly revealed the terms of Joe Biden’s potential involvement with his son and his brother Jim Biden’s global influence peddling scheme in China and elsewhere, which resulted in millions of dollars filling Biden family coffers.
Bobulinski said he’d met the former US Vice President twice and that the FBI reassured him that special agent Timothy Thibault would be handling the investigation into his serious claims. He never heard from the FBI again.
Senator Johnson believes that the ‘suppression and censoring’ of Bobulinski’s testimony and Hunter’s reported influence peddling impacted the 2020 election far more than any meddling by Russia or China could ever have achieved.
Other Republicans see clear signs of the Biden administration using US intelligence to shield the president and his family, citing the recent appointment of ex-CIA and Pentagon official Jeremy Bash to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Bash, helpfully, previously claimed the Hunter laptop smacked of a ‘Russian information operation’.
Sen. Grassley alleged that Thibault had sought to portray verifiable evidence related to the Hunter Biden investigation as disinformation, and alleged that Thibault had ordered agents to close ‘a stream of information related to Hunter Biden (above) and mark it in a way within internal systems that would prevent it from being reopened.
According to James Comer, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee: ‘The Biden Administration has a pattern of using the power of the federal government to protect the Biden family and reward those who do their bidding.’
Donald Trump could certainly be accused of the same offenses, but – as voters may recall – wasn’t the great claim of the Biden presidency that things would be different now?
FBI insiders claim rank-and-file members are losing confidence in Director Christopher Wray, a Trump nominee.
Kurt Siuzdak, a lawyer and former FBI agent who now represents whistleblowers at the bureau, said agents complain Wray has lost control of the agency and want him to resign.
These sources say that Wray is ineffectual and had failed to act on serious internal issues such as agents being forced or coerced into signing false affidavits and claims of sexual harassment and stalking.
More than a month after the August 8th FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach resort and residence, the smoking gun that many expected the bureau to produce to justify such an unprecedented action has yet to surface. Why did the Feds raid a former president’s home, ask Republicans, when they balked at ever doing the same to Hunter Biden.
Meanwhile, polls have shown only a very slim majority of Americans approved of the raid, suggesting that Republicans leaders were not the only ones who considered it wholly inappropriate.
Predictably given the target, it was directly approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland and senior Republicans have demanded he and the FBI’s Christopher Wray appear before Congress to explain what they see as blatant political bias.
They cannot force the pair to testify while the Republicans remain in the minority but that may well change after November’s Midterms if they win a majority and can subpoena them. The GOP has promised open investigations into bias within both the FBI and DoJ – as well as the contents of that laptop – if they win a majority.
Thibault was one of 13 assistant special agents assigned to investigate the Hunter Biden laptop saga and was removed from the supervisory role by FBI Director Christopher Wray (above) last month after agency whistleblowers shed light on an alleged pattern of political bias from multiple high-ranking officials.
Much of the US media tends to mention ‘laptop-gate’ in mocking tones, a flash-in-the-pan setback and passing blow for Team Biden that will not be allowed to disrupt its onward mission to put Donald Trump behind bars, or at least stop him ever running again for the White House.
However, no matter how much they try to brush it under the carpet, the scandal and the FBI’s contrasting treatment of Trump has done a great deal to re-energize the latter’s narrative that ‘the Feds’ have always been out to get him.
Trump was quick to capitalize on the Thibault allegations, describing the ex-FBI agent as ‘a greater source in convincing people that the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged than even the tapes of millions of ballots being stuffed into the voting machines’.
If Hillary Clinton is remotely correct that the FBI lost her the 2016 election over her email server, and Republicans also right in saying it did the same in 2020 over Hunter Biden’s laptop, the bureau certainly has lost its way catastrophically badly in its duty as a servant of the People and Congress.