…to disband—not merely defund—the Federal Bureau of Investigation, relocate the bureau’s [sic] databases and forensics labs to small towns in the Midwest, reassign the line agents to the Marshals Service and Secret Service, and to return all other FBI personnel from field office agent in charge on up through Director to the private sector—not to any other assignment in the Federal government—and reallocate the FBI’s putative budget dollars to other uses, including payroll funds to the Marshals Service and the Secret Service to cover those added agents.

Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX), during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, quizzed FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate regarding an FD-1023, alleged recordings between a Burisma executive and Hunter Biden and between that executive and then-Vice President Joe Biden (D), and FBI supposed investigations of the allegations therein. Abbate’s repeated answer was nothing but FBI stonewalling:

I’m not going to comment on that, Senator.

And

I’m just not going to comment on information we’ve received [regarding] investigations or other matters.

And

This is an area that I’m not going to get into with you, Senator.

In the course of all of this, Abbate uttered the FBI’s Stonewall of Stonewalls:

I’m going to answer within the parameters that we operate in.

Those are FBI parameters, and for the most part, they’re useful. But the overarching, the controlling, parameter within which the FBI operates is the requirement to be responsive to Congressional oversight questions—in the present case, to be responsive to Senate Judiciary Committee oversight questions.

Congressional oversight requirements supersede FBI internal procedures, as Congressional oversight requirements do all Executive Branch agency internal procedures.

The FBI has long since outlived its legitimacy.