FBI should focus on nationwide crime wave, not Mar-a-Lago

OPINION:

Over the last six years, Americans have witnessed some of the darkest times in the history of Federal law enforcement. And the August raid of Mar-a-Lago is sadly only a speed bump along the way.

While our cities continue to be bludgeoned by a historic crime wave, the FBI and Department of Justice have made it clear that their aggressive political agenda is more important than the people they serve. This has come at a tremendous cost to the country — particularly low-income and minority citizens — and if continued will result in a further division between these agencies and the American people.

In June of 2016, Christopher Steele created the “Steele Dossier.” The document was used by the FBI and DOJ as the basis for a three-year investigation aiming to prove Mr. Trump had colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. Surprisingly, the dossier turned out to be funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign as a piece of opposition research. The result was millions of taxpayer dollars lost in a probe that turned out to be a hoax. In the meantime, an all-out urban war has occurred in Chicago. That same year 762 homicides happened and through December of 2021, a mind-blowing 3,289 murders were tallied. Even though the deaths were overwhelmingly among black and poor Americans, the FBI has sat on the sidelines. 

Also consider that in April of 2019 a laptop was dropped off at a Wilmington, Delaware repair shop by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. The shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, realizing the seriousness of the material on the computer, made a copy on a hard drive.  Instead of investigating the evidence of major federal crimes that were revealed on the hard drive, FBI agents actually investigated the shop owner and helped push the lie that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation in meetings with the major social media companies.

Simultaneously there has been an explosion of gang-related crime nationwide. A staggering 15% of all homicides in the U.S. are tied to gangs each year. Gangs feel so free to operate that they even use social media. They also overwhelmingly operate in urban communities. Los Angeles alone reports that gangs engage in 16 crimes a day! Minorities and the working class who live in these urban communities are the victims of this lawlessness.  Though fighting gangs is a key responsibility of the FBI, the agency wastes time on a Delaware shopkeeper.

The claims made against former President Donald Trump are in sharp contrast to the FBI’s actions in 2016 after Hillary Clinton took a hammer to her illegal private servers that exposed thousands of emails containing classified information. She wasn’t a former president, yet she was never charged.  

In an unprecedented move, the FBI used aggressive tactics, including going to a federal magistrate (with partisan ties,) instead of an Article III judge to get permission, to raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

Since Joe Biden’s presidency, America has been experiencing a crime wave that was kicked off by the “Summer of Love” riots of 2020. Then over $2 billion of damage occurred and few have been held responsible. A recently leaked FBI training video about “militia violent extremism” did not include the violence of Antifa, Black Lives Matter adherents or the growing instances of “black on white violent assaults,” but instead chose to highlight pro-2nd Amendment logos and the Gadsden flag as part of domestic terrorist groups.

The working class – and Blacks especially – have been hardest hit by the national crime wave. When combined with Mr. Biden’s policies of soaring inflation and gas prices, these Americans’ hopes of achieving the American Dream are all but wiped out.

Instead of pursuing a political agenda, the FBI should focus like a laser on its actual responsibilities, so it provides the criminal justice relief our nation desperately needs. Federal law enforcement used to be a reliable and unprejudiced resource of our nation, but in less than a decade it has turned into a political tool of the left. An overhaul is needed before more damage is done. The neediest in our communities can’t wait much longer.