Trust in the FBI

It’s rapidly eroding in the aftermath of the FBI’s pre-dawn raid on Mar-a-Lago, a raid that those same agents explicitly barred Trump lawyers from observing.

In response to that eroding trust, FBI Director Christopher Wray had this:

Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others….

Unfounded attacks on the FBI’s integrity are, assuredly, wrong.

However, what Wray is carefully ignoring is that this is the same FBI whose agents lied to FISA courts—repeatedly—in order to get search and surveillance warrants.

This is the same FBI whose agents have repeatedly fabricated “evidence” in order to get warrants from Article III judges.

This is the same FBI whose agents routinely lie in other venues.

This is the same FBI that deliberately avoided going to an Article III judge for their Mar-a-Lago raid warrant, choosing, instead to go to a magistrate judge.

The current attacks on FBI integrity are sadly, dangerously, entirely founded.

This FBI needs to be completely disbanded, its line agents reallocated to the US Marshals Service and to the Secret Service, its forensics capability converted to a small independent agency responsible to State and local police departments (and relocated to our nation’s heartland—say Wichita, KS), and everyone else in the FBI reallocated to the private sector.

Late Update: Corrected an erroneous reference to the CDC to be a reference to the FBI.

Again, I Ask

A canonical example of the journalism guild’s view of what constitutes honest reporting is this from CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell and CBS News‘ response to the outcry over her…error. She emitted a tweet regarding the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, claiming

NEW: According to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump’s passports. Trump had accused the FBI of stealing his three passports during the search of his Mar-a-Lago home.

This was shown later to be obviously wrong; the FBI returned three of Trump’s passports, which of course they could not have done had they not “been in position” of them in the first place.

Notice: O’Donnell claimed to be citing a DOJ official (emphasis mine).

Regarding that,

CBS News protocol is to confirm news with at least two people before reporting it as fact.

Two people.

It used to be the case that journalists were required to cite two on-the-record sources to corroborate an anonymous source’s claim. The journalism guild has long since walked away from that requirement.

And so I ask again.

Why have journalists chosen to walk away from that standard of integrity?

What concrete, measurable standard of integrity do journalists use today in lieu of that one?

Deflection, or Not Understanding?

Last Wednesday, following the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s (R) Mar-a-Lago home, a reporter asked FBI Director Christopher Wray about the possibility of his agents planting evidence. This is, after all, the same FBI that falsified evidence in order to support FISA court warrants that would be used against Trump supporters. This also is the same FBI that refused to allow Trump’s lawyers to watch the FBI as it searched Trump’s home during that raid, even forcing those lawyers present to leave. This is the same FBI that, on the conclusion of its raid and removal of a number of boxes of…somethings…refused to leave behind a receipt for the items confiscated, or even an unsigned list.

Hence the reporter’s question [my corrections to grammar, spelling, and Close Captioning’s misunderstanding of isolated words]:

Former President Trump is raising the prospect of agents planting evidence in the FBI search of his residence in Mar-a-Lago, saying his lawyer’s team is not allowed to observe this search. Can you address that, particularly as many of Mr Trump’s supporters online vision of call to arms and threats against your agents?

Wray responded by expressing his own concern regarding the safety of his agents; however, the kicker is his response to the first part of the reporter’s question regarding evidence:

Well, as I’m sure you can appreciate, that’s not something I can talk about, so I’d refer you to the department.

Here’s the Director of the “department” directing the reporter to his department for her answer regarding his department’s behavior. Last I checked, the Director of the FBI was the head of his “department.”

Christopher Wray is a man who is, clearly, in over his head. He needs to be replaced.

Lies of the Progressive-Democratic Party Politicians

Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and President Joe Biden (D) tout the just passed (I ass-u-me; I’m writing this on Sunday morning) Build Reduced Back Act as not raising taxes on Americans with incomes less than $400k per year. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) agrees with that by her relative silence on the matter.

However, their very own Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation demonstrates the lie of that claim.

Just the News aggregated those data:

Federal taxes will increase by $1.9 billion on those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 and by $10.8 billion on those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 in 2023.
Overall average tax rates would increase from 20.3% to 20.6% in 2023 alone, according to the analysis.

A three-tenths of a percentage point increase might seem like chump change to those politicians, but they need to explain that increase to the large fraction—majority?—of Americans who already live paycheck to paycheck and now will have that “chump change” taken out of their pockets in addition to the taxes they already pay, along with the rising costs of the food, energy, and housing with which they’re already confronted.

The Manchin Tax Increase

Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) continues to…misunderstand…the situation that would be created by his agreement to the Manchin-Schumer Build Back Reduced bill.

People should be paying their fair share, especially the largest corporations in America that have a billion dollars of value or greater.

Manchin—along with his Progressive-Democratic Party cronies—continue to not say what anyone’s “fair share” is. That forces us to conclude that their view of “fair share” is “more.”

And

Can’t they pay at least 15%, so that we can move forward and be the leader of the world and the superpower that we are?

Umm, we became the leader of the world some while ago, well before this 15% minimum tax was dreamed up. It wasn’t necessary then, and it’s destructive to our economy now.