Free Republic

John “Zip” Connolly is apparently one of those hoodlums who cares what his obituary says about him after he’s dead and gone. At age 82, the infamous ex-FBI agent seems obsessed with clearing at least one indelible stain off his remarkably squalid (even by Boston G-man standards) underworld career. He’d prefer not to have “Mob hitman” in the first sentence of his death notice. There’s not much he can do about the racketeering conviction, or all his tawdry connections to the Bulger Crime Family. But “Mob hitman” is a bit much. Sadly, Zip has failed yet again to remove “assassin”...

The Boston office of the FBI finally got something right, and I salute them for doing so. The above is a sentence I never dreamed I would be writing, but there’s a first time for everything, and this is it. This unanticipated turn of events unfolded this week during a Congressional hearing under the new Republican majority. A former FBI intelligence analyst from Boston testified that after the Jan. 6 disturbances, the Boston office adamantly refused to conduct improper investigations on American citizens whose only crime was (or might have been) being a supporter of Donald Trump. This unanticipated turn...