https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-11-12-do-you-have-any-doubt-that-the-fbi-is-fundamentally-a-criminal-organization
Over the years, mostly in connection with the Trump/Russia collusion hoax, I have had many occasions to cover what I have considered to be wrongful — indeed clearly criminal — conduct by the FBI. To give just a few examples, there was the 2016 application for a FISA warrant against Carter Page (three times renewed) based on knowingly false information; the 2017 set-up of Michael Flynn; and then-Director Comey’s blatant lies to President Trump in early 2017 about what the FBI was up to. Or go to this link for a long litany of wrongful FBI and DOJ conduct.
The problem with all of this, of course, is that the FBI completely undermines its own mission when it engages in such conduct. As I wrote at that last link in December 2017:
[Y]ou would be out of your mind ever to cooperate in any way with these guys. And so would everybody else in this country. And thus, the FBI and Justice are totally undermining their own effectiveness as law enforcement institutions.
So with all that has now come out about the FBI’s sordid and criminal role in the Trump/Russia matter, do you think that the people at the Bureau would be at least a little chastened? Don’t be ridiculous. Indeed, they have every reason to have learned the opposite lesson. With more than five years having passed since the launch of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation (i.e., spying on the Trump presidential campaign), most statutes of limitations have expired without any of the main perpetrators getting charged. The sole FBI guy who has taken a plea (lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, for altering an email submitted as part of one of the later FISA applications) was sentenced in January 2021 to mere probation (that is, no jail time). The New York Times quotes the sentencing judge, James Boasberg, as follows:
“Anybody who has watched what Mr. Clinesmith has suffered is not someone who will readily act in that fashion,” Judge Boasberg said. “Weighing all of these factors together — both in terms of the damages he caused and what he has suffered and the positives in his own life — I believe a probationary sentence is appropriate here and will therefore impose it.”