J. Edgar Hoover must be turning in his grave at what is happening to his venerable FBI.  Then again, given Hoover's own proclivities to abuse his powers as the director of that agency, perhaps the predicament in which the bureau finds itself is a natural stage of evolution on an arc of governmental hubris.

It's increasingly clear that the FBI is taking on water at an accelerating rate as new revelations come, fast and furious, in the political scandals engulfing Washington.  This week, for example, we see two adolescent-minded senior FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, involved in virtually all aspects of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation and the Donald Trump "Russian collusion" (or is it "obstruction of justice" now?) investigation, acting like hormone-fueled high school lovers, discussing a "secret society" of Trump-haters one day after President Trump's remarkable election.  We learned of this only because two patriotic congressmen, representatives Trey Gowdy and John Ratcliffe, former federal prosecutors both, revealed this stunning exchange to Fox News.  Was the "secret society" a tongue-in-cheek reference?  Given the mind-boggling behavior of the top echelons at the FBI and DOJ these days, one can't be too sure.

The keel of the USS Federal Bureau of Investigation is starting to rise out of the water, like the RMS Titanic about 30 minutes after striking the iceberg.  One can almost hear the bodies of top law enforcement bureaucrats crashing against each other, like so much china on a dying vessel sinking under the waves, as the embattled organization faces exposure after exposure of truly outrageous and un-American, if not illegal, conduct.

This sad state of affairs represents the depressing collapse of a pillar of American culture for many of us who grew up revering it and the "G‑men" who populated it.  It did a wonderful job of cultivating that aura through the media and entertainment industries, often providing technical assistance to the producers of movies like The Silence of the Lambs.

For those of us over 40, who can forget watching the tough, suave FBI agent Lewis Erskine played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in the eponymous television show, The FBI?  He was the epitome of cool and integrity.

This crafty self-promotion in popular culture has occurred over many decades, spawning countless such television series, movies, and books exalting the bureau.  My youngest, college-aged daughter is a devotee of Criminal Minds, yet another slick Hollywood rendering of hip, brilliant FBI agents solving complex serial murders through cunning and derring-do – all in the space of an hour, with commercial breaks, of course.

The tragic reality is that this apotheosis of American law enforcement, this symbol of truth, justice, and the American way, has become so corrupt, so politicized, and so diametrically opposed to its mission because of its recent actions that nothing short of its reconstitution is required – much as the KGB was reconstituted following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  (I never thought I would be drawing any sort of comparison between the FBI and the KGB, but those are the unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves.)

I have spent three decades working in intelligence and investigations in federal law enforcement, in corporate-sector investigations, and currently for the nonprofit organization leading much of the investigative work into the corruption of our own government.  I worked for the high-end opposition research firm, Investigative Group International, that was employed by the Clinton administration in the '90s at the height of the scandals in which it was embroiled.  All of this is to say that I know the world of private intelligence and opposition research as well as anyone, and my comments are informed by practical experience from both a private investigative perspective and a law enforcement perspective.

What we are seeing today at the highest levels of our government should frighten all Americans.

As I laid out in detail in a recent interview for Judicial Watch, discussing the role of Fusion GPS, its interactions with the FBI, and Fusion founder Glenn Simpson's testimony before a Senate committee, the evidence is rapidly emerging that senior officials in our government, most likely up to and including then-president of the United States Barack Obama, worked in concert to illicitly, and possibly criminally, derail the candidacy of the opposition party's presidential candidate using fabricated information (or, as former FBI director James Comey described it, "salacious and unverified") obtained by a private investigations firm from an enemy of the United States: Russia.

Even worse, once that effort to derail that candidacy failed and that candidate, Donald Trump, was elected, those same individuals used the same manufactured evidence as the basis to launch an investigation, employing the vast authority and technical resources of the United States government, whose ultimate goal, I believe, is to impeach and remove that duly elected president.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a coup d'état.

Merriam-Webster defines a coup d'état as a "a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics."

While the Hillary-FBI-DOJ-Fusion GPS cabal was not a violent coup, to be sure, it was certainly a decisive exercise of force in politics when it used, as has been reported, a fraud on the court to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on members of the opposing party's presidential campaign.  In fact, it is far more insidious than the sort of coups we typically see in Africa and Latin America.  It required the subversion and corruption of numerous governmental agencies, not just the FBI – to effect: the Department of Justice and the National Security Agency to be sure, and possibly the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and other agencies as well.

I do not say this lightly.  As the son of a World War II veteran, the father of a currently serving member of the U.S. military, and an American citizen, I care deeply about this country, the Constitution, and the rule of law.  The American people need to wake up and understand the gravity of what is shaping up to be nothing short of an attempt to overthrow their government.

The sinking of the FBI may be the least of our worries.

God bless and save America.  

William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, the private sector, and the non-profit sector for over 30 years.  Presently, he is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc.  (The views expressed are the author's alone and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)