Pissing off the FBI

One law enforcement official summed it up bluntly: "There's a lot of anger. The irony is it's a conservative-leaning organization, and it's being trashed by conservatives. At first it was just perplexing. Now there's anger, because it's not going away."

On Friday, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray sent a video message to those he leads, urging them to "keep calm and tackle hard."

  WaPo

Music to their ears.

"You've all been through a lot in these past nine months, and I know that's been unsettling, to say the least. And the past few days haven't done much to calm those waters," Wray said. "So I want to make sure that you know where I stand, and what I want us to do."

[...]

For decades, the FBI has been trusted to investigate corruption inside the government, even at the highest levels, including the White House. In the 1970s, the FBI's probe of the Watergate break-in led to the resignation of President Nixon. In the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton came to detest then-director Louis Freeh, but their distrust did not lead to withering public attacks from the president himself.

Well, that president was a lot smarter than the one they're dealing with now.

Wray's vision for leading the agency out of its current predicament is a return to the type of low-profile management favored by former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, according to several people who have spoken to him about the current challenges.

Hard to do when the president is tweeting pokes at you every day.

The public attacks from the president have diminished morale inside the FBI, according to current and former officials. Among themselves, senior officials and rank and file frequently debate the best way forward. Several law enforcement officials said they agreed with Wray's low-key approach, as a means of what one called "getting back to Mueller's FBI."

[...]

Wray's defenders say there is a more strategic reason for the new director's approach — by relying on long-standing law enforcement policies and procedures, he believes the FBI can navigate through the current political storms and get back to a position of widespread trust across the political spectrum, according to people familiar with his thinking.

I think that's a long shot. We passed that fork in the road a while back.

Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director, said some of the president's behavior toward the Justice Department and the FBI might do lasting damage. While the president might now feel he wants the bureau under his firm control, Hosko said, he might regret that if a like-minded president took office and ordered investigations of Trump or his family.

"The battle is incredible, and who's riding to the defense of the FBI? The Democrats," said Hosko. "It just makes no sense."

Actually, it does. We've been heading toward this point for decades: the point where we have no moral, ethical or logical anchor. No real principles. We decide what's right or wrong according to which side has the reins, making it all the more important for the two parties to each do whatever they can to be the one to hold those reins.

"Republicans feel the White House is under siege and have suspicions that the FBI was not playing fair,'' said one former senior Justice Department official. "Republicans think this is just part of the war they are fighting."

Because they rightly sense they need to control the conversation if they're going to retain control of the government. And they're assuming no one will notice that they were cheering the FBI just over a year ago when they deemed it was helping them expose Hillary Clinton and win the election.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.