Americans once believed that the FBI was an incorruptible agency, untainted by local or, indeed any politics. From 1965-1975, The F.B.I. showed TV viewers a successful, honest FBI. Not only was the FBI never that good, today’s news stories signal that it’s completely awful. Here’s more information about the Philadelphia raid, along with other negative FBI news:

1. Jack Cashill wrote about the FBI’s over-the-top arrest of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist, who pushed an abortion activist last year because the man was aggressive around Houck’s 12-year-old son. The man filed a now-dismissed civil suit, but that wasn’t enough for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It sent around two dozen heavily armed FBI agents to arrest Houck in front of his seven panicked children.

When contemplating the FBI’s extremism, we’ve now learned that the alleged victim filed a civil claim only after the Philadelphia police and the District Attorney refused to charge Houck. The court dismissed that complaint because he repeatedly failed to show up in court.

But there’s more. After Houck received a letter telling him the U.S. Attorney was investigating him, the office refused to return his calls:

Through his attorney at the time, Houck tried to contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office to discuss the case but never received a response, Middleton said.

“The next time they heard anything was Friday morning [when the FBI conducted the raid],” he said.

Image: FBI flag (public domain), edited by Andrea Widburg.

2. Would you be surprised to learn that the FBI is abusing the Constitution to persecute January 6ers (and, I would add, to persecute people like Houck)? That’s just one of the charges whistleblower and Special Agent Stephen M. Friend has leveled at his employer:

Friend said one of his many concerns is that the FBI is using SWAT teams to arrest Jan. 6 defendants facing misdemeanor charges, violating the bureau’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide and creating a potentially unsafe encounter.

[snip]

“There are active criminal investigations of J6 subjects in which I am listed as the ‘Case Agent,’ but have not done any investigative work,” Friend wrote in the complaint. “Additionally, my supervisor has not approved any paperwork within the file. J6 Task Force members are serving as Affiants on search and arrest warrant affidavits for subjects whom I have never investigated or even interviewed but am listed as a Case Agent.”

As more icing on the corrupt case, it appears that Facebook is working with the FBI to suppress any posts and private messages regarding Friend’s allegations.

3. The FBI is alleged to have misled a judge to authorize the wrongful seizure of $86 million in cash and valuables from 1,400 safe-deposit boxes in a bank vault in Beverly Hills—and is now refusing to return the money:

The privacy invasion was vast when FBI agents drilled and pried their way into 1,400 safe-deposit boxes at the U.S. Private Vaults store in Beverly Hills.

They rummaged through personal belongings of a jazz saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, two Century City lawyers and hundreds of others.

Agents took photos and videos of pay stubs, password lists, credit cards, a prenuptial agreement, immigration and vaccination records, bank statements, heirlooms and a will, court records show. In one box, agents found cremated human remains.

Eighteen months later, newly unsealed court documents show that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles got their warrant for that raid by misleading the judge who approved it.

It turns out that the FBI agents didn’t tell the judge that they intended to seize everything from any box with $5,000 or more in cash or goods. The lawsuit is necessary because the FBI now refuses to return the wrongfully seized items.

If this reminds you of the lies told to spy on Carter Page, giving it access to Trump’s own communications, it should. The agency has gone totally rogue.

Most people are familiar with the phrase “power corrupts.” That’s an abridged version. What Lord Acton actually wrote to Bishop Mandell in 1887 was “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In our high-tech, highly-partisan era, it really looks as if the FBI has acquired absolute power and it is absolutely corrupt. When Republicans regain Congress and the White House, they must investigate and, if necessary, act to curb its excesses.