Unless you were living in a cave, it is quite apparent that the FBI lost its way in the past 20 years. It is not just the Bureau adhering to politically correct directives. Given the opposition, one might think President Trump nominated a criminal when he named Kash Patel to head the FBI. Now that he has been confirmed, everything else is moot except what Patel must do to return the FBI to the level of respect previously enjoyed. Deservedly so.
Mr. Patel made a quick start on his first day by telling the Bureau staff he will be moving many jobs from the DC area either back into the field and/or to the Redstone Arsenal campus in Huntsville, Alabama. The locations may not have the allure of being in DC, but that is not what people should be concerned about working for the FBI. They need to focus on taking criminals off the streets, thus aiding local law enforcement.
The current FBI was ruined by a “revered” Director, Robert Mueller. He did two things simultaneously. The first was reorienting the focus of the FBI to counterespionage.
As Mueller stated in his presentation to a House subcommittee on September 14, 2006, “After the September 11 attacks on America, the FBI priorities shifted dramatically. Our top priority became the prevention of another terrorist attack. Today, our top three priorities—counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber security—are all national-security related. To that end, we have made a number of changes in the Bureau, both in structure and in the way we do business. We have recently announced the realignment of our organizational structure to create five branches: National Security, Criminal Investigations, Science and Technology, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and Human Resources.”
Why George W. Bush allowed the dismantling of the FBI’s central purpose is beyond me. None of Bush’s successors since then have grasped this misdirection. We didn’t have enough intelligence agencies at 17 focused on counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber security. Did we really need the 18th?
Second, Mueller restructured the leadership of the FBI into these divisions and appointed more bureaucrats to run each division. Patel has already fired the six division heads that were blocking the Director from his principal objective. The one division that should not only be maintained but expanded is Criminal Investigations. That is why the FBI was formed and what it should be doing.
The essential task that Mr. Patel has is to get the FBI out of the National Security business. The FBI has no business being involved in international espionage. If, as a matter of course, their agents encounter criminals participating in illegal activities that cross borders then so be it. It should be a secondary or tertiary purpose. The FBI should work in coordination with local, county and state policing authorities to eliminate crime. It should be providing resources that work across state borders to aid state and local authorities in the apprehension of criminals and criminal gangs.
We don’t have a national police force. The FBI is the closest we have to that and the only organization that was formed to eliminate crime. That is its history. Yes, the world changes, but the need for the central focus of the FBI has become even more in demand.
Mr. Patel needs to cancel the National Security aspect of what Mueller created. That is part of what the CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the fourteen other entities do. They don’t focus on what the FBI has traditionally done nor should they.
Mr. Patel has gotten off to a good start by decentralizing the activities of the FBI. Yes, there is crime in DC, but so is there in Montana and Nebraska. That is where the resources and the agents should be.
Then he can obliterate the use of any resources of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC) from the Bureau forever.