When I worked at the Narcotics Task Force, a reoccurring nightmare would wake me in the middle of the night. Looking back. It could be that time has colored my recollection. I don’t know. It seems to me that the nightmares were in response to whatever scheme I contemplated or was party to that danced dangerously close to ethical boundaries. Either that or the pepperoni pizza I ate for dinner.
As an investigator I knew that whole mechanism of justice could be subverted by the actions of the lazy and unprincipled. It is an either or proposition, neither needing the other to create havoc. An unprincipled investigator can salt a search warrant with lies and misstatements with little fear of being challenged by the judge that reviews it. I knew I was playing a straight game. I trusted most of peers were also. Like One of my fellow investigators, Bluto, used to say. “It ain’t no fun if you gotta cheat.”
It is an added bonus if the reviewing judge is to lazy to challenge the facts. There were times when judges complained because the facts stated in my search warrant affidavit were longer than a paragraph. So much to read…
Consider the games the FBI played with the Carter Page FISA warrant. The FBI leaked allegations regarding Page to the New York Times. The Times reported the allegations. The FBI than used the New York Times story to bolster the allegations and make it appear that two independent investigations came to the same conclusion.
By FBI lights the only thing they did wrong was that they got caught.
That is old news. Trump made the FBI lie. Okay, how about this one?
Cops talk about being a “legend in their own time.” I think Joseph Wambaugh coined the phrase. A cop can achieve that title by performing any act that involved heroism or an act of incredible stupidity. I know a female cop who became a legend in her own time. During pistol qualification she got her tit caught in the slide of her semiautomatic pistol. No, not her shirt, her tit.
The Feds have the equivalent. It is called a career case. It can be either good or bad. Here is an example of a good career case. The FBI foiled a plot to assassinate the President in South Texas.
Her is an example of a bad career case. A group of right wing extremists, maybe six, could be more or less. Decide to kidnap Governor Whitmer. They are soon joined by coconspirators, could be six or more. These coconspirators are all FBI informants. The extremists need guns and stuff. But they can’t afford them. The FBI can. The extremists need to set up meetings, but they can’t afford bus fare. The FBI can. Here is the story from two view points.
Here is my take, as previously reported.
Whitmer Kidnapping – PORAC Ponders
Here is another analysis from the defense side.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/30/whitmer-case-exposes-pattern-of-fbi-misconduct/
Two psychologists wrote a book about the prevalence of psychopaths in business. Here is the cover.
Ask Joe Citizen. Can you identify the psychopath in the group pictured below? Most would immediately settle on the figure on the left, Hannibal Lecter from the movie Silence of the Lambs. As Doctors Hare and Babiak point out, not all psychopaths consume human body parts.
My answer would be all of those pictured are psychopaths.
Remember, when the FBI comes knocking, anything you say or don’t say will be used against you. Be afraid, very afraid.