From 1924 to 1972, J. Edgar Hoover organized and controlled the federal law enforcement of the United States of America. He built a flawed and highly politicized organization into the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The mistakes Hoover made came built in with the headquarters Hoover Building in Washington today. It is still flawed and highly politicized.
The best example of the FBI’s failings is the direct and malicious interference by FBI Director James Comey into the 2016 presidential election. It was, to a measure, responsible for the election of Donald Trump. It was the final straw. For all of J. Edgar Hoover’s failings as a man and as a non-partisan servant of the people, he never issued anything like the letter Comey released to the media to impact Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency. That was a political roorback of epic proportions.
(A “roorback” is a classic political move against an opponent timed carefully to give the opponent no time before the vote to refute the, usually, scurrilous charges.)
Of course, what President would ever want someone willing to do what Comey did to work for him? Comey had to be fired.
Going back to the beginnings of the federal bureau, the “G-man” has been a staple of American fiction. Books, comics, movies, radio and television have sold the nation’s youth on the supposed invulnerability of the FBI agent. While Naval Intelligence has won the recent TV ratings wars (with NCIS), the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI (Criminal Minds) has had the staying power on television. Mind you, the version imputing the extraterritorial activities (Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders) left viewers incredulous. It would never happen.
But looked at as either fact or fiction, the American FBI has done a disservice to Americans. It needs a judiciary oversight that can clean out some, if not all, the politicized nature of the agency as part of the Department of Justice.
What J. Edgar Hoover built needs to be rebuilt.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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