Posted on 09/16/2022 2:29:36 PM PDT by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
From bureau veterans to key lawmakers in Congress, the notion of an independent review is growing in urgency.
A half century ago, Americans held grave concerns that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies had abused civil rights, improperly targeted enemies and illegally gathered evidence, so Congress set out on a great cleansing mission. It formed a special committee chaired by Idaho Sen. Frank Church that laid bare the wrongdoing, overhauled the bureau and created new guardrails to protect civil liberties.
A growing number of influential figures in Washington are arguing it's time for another Church Committee after a tumultuous six years in which the FBI admitted it misled the FISA court while spying on Donald Trump's campaign, had executives who lied, doctored evidence or usurped prosecutors' authority, and employed agents who dropped the ball on a sexual abuse scandal involving Olympians and overcollected evidence in a raid of a former president's home.
The revelation this week that the bureau secretly paid a Russian businessman as a confidential informant against Trump even though he was suspected of lying and having ties to the Kremlin's intelligence agencies only accelerated support for a sweeping, independent probe of the FBI now under the control of Director Christopher Wray.
"I think, frankly, it would be great for the FBI," Kevin Brock, the bureau's first-ever intelligence chief, said of the notion of a new Church Committee. "They find themselves obviously in a very challenging situation, some of which they brought on themselves, others kind of imposed upon them.
"But they find themselves in a place right now where well over the half the country believes they're working on behalf of one political party over another," he said during a wide-ranging interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast this week. "And that can't stand … the agency can't survive if that persists."
Ex-FBI boss on big question left for Durham: Why did bureau pay Russian as source to spy on Trump?Ex-FBI boss on big question left for Durham: Why did bureau pay Russian as source to spy on Trump?
Brock, a former assistant director who helped write the rules the FBI currently uses for informants, is a widely respected voice inside the bureau. But many outside it echo his support for a 21st century Church Committee or something like the 9/11 Commission that investigated the worst terror attacks in American history.
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who helped unravel the false Russia collusion narrative, said the highly partisan tensions in Washington these days make it hard for a traditional congressional committee to do the sort of oversight it needs, citing examples of how Democrats thwarted his effort to probe FBI failures in the Russia case. He said that reality makes a blue ribbon commission or select committee a better option to investigate and reform the FBI.
"You know, we weren't really designed to run these types of investigations," said Nunes, recalling his time on the House Intelligence Committee. "And for so long, the process actually worked. It was relatively bipartisan for the most part. But when you have corruption at that level, it becomes so hard to run these investigations right.
"You have to ultimately have Congress involved doing a real investigation, and I think it's going to be very, very difficult if you use just the current committee structure that they have."
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the likely House Judiciary Committee chairman next year if the GOP wins control of Congress, supports the idea of a select committee like the one Church chaired, even if his panel does aggressive oversight on its own.
"I think that that exercise is definitely needed, whether it's done in a special select kind of committee or a blue ribbon commission," said Jordan, who himself has been contacted by five FBI whistleblowers in recent months alleging political manipulation of investigations and even crime data. "That's even maybe with some members outside of Congress."
"We need to seriously look at how this all has to change in a way that respects the liberties of the American people," Jordan said, adding he has increasing concerns about the influence that politically "woke" intelligence analysts are having inside the bureau in shaping allegations and investigations.
The Church Committee ultimately assembled some of the biggest names in the Senate, including three members who ran for president. All brought intellectual and political heft from both sides of the aisles in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and the end of the Hoover era. Figures like Walter Mondale, Howard Baker, Barry Goldwater, John Tower and Gary Hart were able to find consensus, issuing numerous volumes of reports that exposed intelligence death squads and civil liberty violations that included unlawful snooping and spying.
Ultimately, that committee's greatest contribution was a series of legal reforms that reined in the FBI and governed two generations of agents to color inside the lines after a dark history of past abuses.
"They pointed out a lot of these abuses and from that gave birth the attorney general guidelines, which the FBI still operates under today," recalled Brock, who joined the FBI in the aftermath of the Church Committee.
The new, post-Church guidelines "in stark terms stipulated how, and when an FBI agent can open up a case against a subject," Brock explained. "And those were great bumper pads that were put in place. Now the bureau knew, 'Okay, we can't go beyond these boundaries. We're safe as long as we stay inside these boundaries.' And it worked wonderfully for years."
Nunes said one reason outside forces are needed to press FBI reform is that its current leader, Wray, hasn't been willing to make the sweeping changes the public needs to restore trust, even if he has put in place some new reforms of tactics involving, for example, FISA warrants.
"We cannot trust after all this time, that Wray has done one damn thing to clean up this agency," Nunes said. "In fact, it's gotten worse. The American people know it's worse."
Whatever solution the next Congress chooses, the status quo is not an option, said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee."We have to find out what is going on in the FBI," she told the "Just the News, Not Noise" show earlier this week. "I know a lot of people that work with the FBI are good, hard-working people. But there is a political cabal inside the FBI that has to be dealt with. It's inside the Department of Justice also."
lying to the fisa court should be a hanging offense
no one has even been charged
Frank Church was a democrat when they just might have been honorable. Then there’s the Russian troops in Cuba he blew the whistle on. Mighta cost Carter the election.
No. End it.
“Sorry, but the FBI, ATF, DEA, Ed Dept, Energy Dept, and a host of other federal bureaucracies need to be abolished; not reformed.”
_________________
Bears repeating.
That would be great. I’m 100% sure the fine DC GOP truth seekers would straighten this right out. They could bring tried and true DC GOPers such as Barr, Graham, Rubio, Roberts, McCarthy, etc. No doubt this would be another cover up of crimes. Those agencies are no more able to be rehabilitated than the Gestapo or NKVD were. Tear them down and start over.
Agree 100%. Failing that (and to be realistic it will probably fail), any group formed to do this should NOT allow any politicians or agency members, current or former, to be a member.
If this suggestion is not followed it will be a complete sham and an awful waste of taxpayer dollars.
The first one didn’t work. It was just like the Maxwell trial. All smoke and no fire.
Aaaaand the FBI has already infiltrated the Church group.
You just hit a grand slam summarizing that worthless Church investigation. He used it to run for president and the media pretended the Democrats were piggybacking off Watergate to fight corruption.
It produced nothing, but the press still cites it.
"The knock-on affect is the Deep State directly attempting to de-legitimize the incoming 118th GOP Congress and the flood of investigations that will start in the first 100 days.The first thing to do is establish the Church Committee II, a 3-year tribunal that will punish the politicization of the Deep State against half of this country, and more particularly against one man.
I say 3-year because the Church Committee II will release its report on the 50th Anniversary of the Church Committee in 2025, after Trump is re-elected, so that he may observe his enemies driven before him.
"In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air.Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." -- Sen. Frank Church, Meet the Depressed, August 18, 1975
The rationale for the FBI was the automobile.
Cars made it possible for bank robbers to cover long distances quickly, crossing state lines before local cops could catch them. Whereupon jurisdiction and extradition became problematic issues.
The response was Hoover's G-Men, who could cross state lines with impunity.
How the worm has turned! Fifty years ago, liberal Democrats like Frank Church were denouncing the FBI and CIA for abuses and the conservatives of that era regarded the Congressional investigations as giving aid and comfort to the Communists. Now the Left has taken total control of these institutions and are defending the heirs of J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles while conservatives want the FBI and CIA disbanded or at least severely restricted in their abilities to interfere in domestic politics.
“Sorry, but the FBI, ATF, DEA, Ed Dept, Energy Dept, and a host of other federal bureaucracies need to be abolished; not reformed.”
I would add that there needs to be a complete and total removal of ALL Union activities from each and every level of Government (Taxpayer Funded) employment. That includes Local, State level and Federal. No exceptions. Those people in the Public Sector have no business at all belonging to any “labor” organization.
“unveiled M0cking &ird (!), C0int @lpr0 and MK ^ltra”
Yup—and lets see what has happened with those...
Mockingbird—the intelligence community now has total control of the mass media and Big Tech—even worse than it was then
Cointelpro—the intelligence community has focused on creating fake right wing organizations, using agents provocateurs to get crimes committed, used the Internet to create dissension among right wing groups (and who knows what else we don’t know about...).
MKultra—See Mockingbird—turning the mass media and Big Tech into mass brainwashing operations (and who knows what else we don’t know about.
And...the NSA using Big Tech to spy on everybody all the time.
One step forward, ten steps back.
Your point is well taken. The FBI, et al can rest easy knowing the extent of corruption and warped culture of DC. Lots of them live in glass houses.
.
Watch the Senate Hearing the day before they went to the Epstein Judge.
They think Chris Wray is a God.
They told him just pick a number for your Budget Increase - and I dare anyone to question it.
People need to be grounded in reality. The Republican Senate loves the FBi Management. They covered for them on Crossfire Hurricane, too.
The only three guys that have said anything - two are up for re-election right now, and one of those two campaigned with Pence when Pence said we need to get behind the FBi.
Reality
It's time to bring back the chain gang.
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