Climate Change Is Real at the FBI--and Here is the Data to Prove It
Source: Lawfare Blog
By Scott R. Anderson, Benjamin Wittes Sunday, July 15, 2018, 11:00 AM
Rank-and-file confidence in the FBI’s senior leadership has taken a sharp hit.
That’s the bottom line from the bureau’s latest “climate survey,” the results of which we obtained on Friday through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Across an array of metrics, both at headquarters and in the FBI’s 56 field offices, employees still express high esprit de corps about the FBI itself and their work for the bureau. But when asked about confidence in the vision of the FBI director, the value of direct communications from him, the honesty and integrity of senior bureau leaders, or respondents’ respect for those leaders, there is a striking drop in confidence from previous years. Some questions from prior years that might have been particularly evocative were not even asked in this most recent survey.
There are a number of reasons FBI employees might be feeling alienated from the leadership. This year’s data, collected in February and March, captures reactions to a number of major developments over the past year, including the firing of James Comey as FBI director, the removal of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, countless attacks by President Trump on federal law enforcement, the controversy over text exchanges between counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and the proliferation of a conservative media narrative that portrays the FBI as ground zero in a “Deep State” conspiracy. Because the data was collected early this year, it does not capture reaction to the inspector general’s investigation of the Clinton email probe and the severe criticisms of agents and of Comey within the IG report, nor does it capture reaction to the separate report on McCabe. But the data is likely to reflect reactions to those investigations while they were underway.
Significantly, it also captures reactions to Director Christopher Wray’s comparatively low profile in public defense of the bureau while the agency has been under attack. During the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees’ joint hearing last week, Strzok was confronted with repeated insinuations that the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia was driven by his personal political views. Strzok made a passionate defense of the FBI’s investigative safeguards and hit back at his questioners for their “deeply destructive” conduct. The severe lapses in judgment that led to Strzok’s current predicament make him a highly imperfect figure to defend the FBI in public right now. Yet in a year in which President Trump and his allies in Congress and the media have repeatedly accused the FBI of bias and corruption, Strzok’s response stands out as one of the most spirited instances in which an FBI official—albeit a suspended one—has spoken forcefully in the institution’s defense.
Read more: https://www.lawfareblog.com/climate-change-real-fbi-and-here-data-prove-it
= new reply since forum marked as read
Already it is happening I'm sure. It has already begun with judges all across the country. The next Democratic President (sigh) will have a formidable tea bagger court to contend with.
But yes, also within all the institutions Trump now criticizes. If this government goes on without House oversight after November, between good people resigning in disgust and all new hires having to swear loyalty oaths to Trump, it wouldn't take long before the FBI is totally corrupted. And then and only then, will Trump praise them. After one of these new hires come out and says how Trump was right all along, and that the last of the deep state Democrat traitors have been purged, and that there is no need to continue any investigations into Trump or his finances. But Hillary......well, that's another matter.
I am praying this never is allowed to happen....
