{"id":11864,"date":"2019-06-12T08:22:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11864"},"modified":"2019-06-12T08:22:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:22:47","slug":"the-fbi-tragedy-elites-above-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-fbi-tragedy-elites-above-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"The FBI Tragedy: Elites above the Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are told, however, that the FBI\u2019s culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI\u2019s more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion hoax were not recent career appointees. Rather, many came up through the ranks of the FBI. And that raises the question, for example, of where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are told, however, that the FBI\u2019s culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI\u2019s more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion hoax were not recent career appointees. Rather, many came up through the ranks of the FBI. And that raises the question, for example, of where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an \u201cinsurance policy\u201d to take out a presidential candidate? Or why would he even consider overseeing an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton\u2019s improper use of emails when his wife had been a recent recipient of Clinton-related PAC money? And why would McCabe contemplate leaking confidential FBI information to the press or even dream of setting up some sort of operation to remove a sitting president under the 25th Amendment? And how did someone like the old FBI vet Peter Strozk ever end up at the center of the entire mess \u2014 opening up the snooping on the Trump campaign while hiding that fact and while briefing the candidate on Russian interference in the election, interviewing Michael Flynn, preening as a top FBI investigator for Robert Mueller\u2019s dream team, right-hand man of \u201cAndy\u201d McCabe, convincing Comey to change the wording of his writ in the Clinton-email-scandal investigation, softball coddling of Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, instrumental in the Papadopoulos investigation con \u2014 all the while conducting an affair with fellow FBI investigator and attorney Lisa Page and bragging about his assurance that the supposedly odious Trump would be prevented from being elected. If a group of Trump zealots were to call up the FBI tomorrow and allege that a member of Joe Biden\u2019s family has had unethical ties with the Ukrainian or Chinese government, would that gambit \u201calarm\u201d the FBI enough to prompt an investigation of Biden and his campaign? How many career-professional Peter Strozks are still at the agency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2019\/06\/fbi-tragedy-elites-above-law\/\">Read the full article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review We are told, however, that the FBI\u2019s culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI\u2019s more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1151,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-35m","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10948,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fisa-gate-is-scarier-than-watergate\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":0},"title":"FISA-Gate is Scarier than Watergate","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The Watergate scandal of 1972\u201374 was uncovered largely because of outraged Democratic politicians and a bulldog media. They both claimed that they had saved American democracy from the Nixon administration\u2019s attempt to warp the CIA and FBI to cover up an otherwise minor, though\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;FISA&quot;","block_context":{"text":"FISA","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fisa\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10857,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nagging-questions-for-the-special-counselors\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":1},"title":"Nagging Questions for the Special Counselors","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review \u00a0 1) If the FISA Court orders to explore the purported Trump-Russian collusion were predicated on phony Steele\/Fusion GPS documents and suppositions that prove largely untrue (Comey himself testified under oath that he could not verify their contents), then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bill Clinton&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bill Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/bill-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11425,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-truths-behind-our-current-political-turmoil\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":2},"title":"The Truths Behind Our Current Political Turmoil","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Are there any guiding principles that can make sense of the sensational news that now overwhelms the senses seemingly every hour? What is common to blaring headlines about the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearings, an anti-Trump \u201cresistance\u201d buried deep in the permanent bureaucracy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10592,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/beware-of-narratives-and-misinformation\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":3},"title":"Beware of Narratives and Misinformation","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Narratives surrounding the DNC hack & Antifa reveal media bias and government bureaucracy at their worst. \u00a0 U.S. intelligence agencies said Russia was responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee e-mail accounts, leading to the publication of about 20,000 stolen e-mails on WikiLeaks. \u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comey&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10941,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ticking-memo\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":4},"title":"The Ticking Memo","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The House Intelligence Committee memo is pretty simple. It should not have been classified and thus far withheld from the public. In fact, far more information now needs to be released. Despite the outcry, as Chairman Devin Nunes clarified, the memo can easily be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;FBI&quot;","block_context":{"text":"FBI","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fbi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11016,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rethinking-watergate\/","url_meta":{"origin":11864,"position":5},"title":"Rethinking Watergate","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution The Watergate break-in is now 45 years old. The scandal is as distant from our own time as it was once from 1928. The median age of Americans is about 38 years old. Half of all Americans were likely born after the break-in. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11865,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11864\/revisions\/11865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}