FBI director nominee Kash Patel has often joked that on day one in office he would shut down FBI Headquarters and reopen it the next day as a Museum of the Deep State. Rueful joke aside, he may not know how close to the truth he really is. The FBI has a sneaky little secret that has probably escaped the attention of its most ardent fans at DOJ. It's even possible that the cloistered and suited gangsters on the 7th Floor don't even know how easy it could be to topple the entire enterprise.
The FBI has been in the middle of countless scandals, illegal behavior, lying on warrants, spying on people when they have no basis, making up charges, setting perjury traps, bungling Ruby Ridge and Waco with deadly results, and investigating people like President Trump.
We've come a long way from this gauzy memory of the FBI, America.
The law enforcement agency turned Stasi sends entire SWAT teams to targets' homes at 5 in the morning, even after those same subjects offer to turn themselves in in a business suit accompanied by an attorney. They've been ordered to use "shock and awe" methods for trespassing at the Capitol. And those are just some of the dangerous shenanigans the nation's foremost law enforcement agency has pulled.
If so inclined, however, the Trump Administration could shut the FBI down more easily than Steven D'Antuono set up a sucker who lives in a vacuum store to "kidnap" a governor. In other words, really, really easy—on paper, anyway.
One memo. And it wasn't even signed by the president. It was signed by the attorney general in 1908.
The memo reads:
All matters relating to investigations under the Department [of Justice], except those that be made by bank examiners, and in connection with the naturalization service, will be referred to the Chief Examiner for a memorandum as to whether any member of the force of special agents under his direction is available for the work to be performed. To authorization for expenditure for special examinations shall be made by any officer of the Department, without first ascertaining whether one of the regular force is available for the service desired, and, in case the service cannot be performed by the regular force of special agents of the Department, the matter will be specially called to the attention of the Attorney General or Acting Attorney General, together with a statement from the Chief Examiner as to the reasons why a regular employee cannot be assigned to the work, before authorization shall be made for the expenditure of any money for this purpose.
Charles J. Bonaparte
Attorney General
Waller believes the FBI could be dispatched with the stroke of a pen by issuing a similar memo signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Waller, who's with the Center for Security Policy, has gamed-out how the FBI's functions could be absorbed into other parts of the massive law enforcement apparatus in the U.S. We discussed it in a recent "The Adult in the Room" podcast and in our prior discussion.
He suggests that the FBI be transformed from a domestic intelligence unit into one that looks into foreign espionage threats on our soil. Nobody's saying it would be easy, but then again, nothing the Trump Administration has undertaken in his this second term has been easy.
It's a delicious thing to consider that it could be much easier than anyone ever thought.
Born by the memo, live by the memo, die by the memo.
Sue that, lefties.
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