I last wrote about the FBI on January 19, 2025 in The FBI sweeps DEI under the rug. An excerpt:

It would seem since 2012, that was not the way things worked with the FBI, the agency that would have us believe it is the world’s premier law enforcement agency. As I noted in Taking the DEI out of the FBI on January 7, DEI, established in 2012 during Obama’s term, has been rampant in that agency, forcing obviously incompetent, even dangerous, DEI hires on qualified and capable FBI field offices, people who can’t be fired despite, among other failings, being functionally illiterate.

Graphic: X Screenshot

Kash Patel is poised to take the helm of the FBI, but even if he is not confirmed, Donald Trump is going to find a Director that will sweep out the trash and rebuild the agency, a reformation long overdue. If confirmation depended on Patel’s effortless manhandling of dimwitted, hysterical, screaming congressional Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs), he’d be confirmed 100 to 0. Even without Patel’s confirmation, Trump is beginning the necessary process:

The senior officials [told to resign or be fired] are at the executive assistant director level or special agent in charge level and include those who oversee cyber, national security and criminal investigations, the sources told CNN. Some were notified while Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, sat answering questions from senators for his confirmation hearing Thursday.

At The City Journal, former FBI Agent Pat McMonigle noted the Bureau’s decline…

As agents struggle, the public’s trust has receded. Prior Directors’ choice to wade into the political fray—starting with the epic mismanagement of the Steele Dossier controversy, and continuing with the ongoing weaponization of the Bureau—has raised serious questions for many Americans about our commitment to a nonpartisan mission.

…and offered informed advice to Patel on how to reform it.

Firing administrators whose actions are clearly irredeemable is a good and necessary beginning, but Patel is going to have to be careful not to throw out salvageable people.

I’ve long hoped the majority of line agents are honest, ethical people striving to defend and protect America. The problem is when two show up on your doorstep—they usually travel in pairs—how can you possibly know they’re ethical? Take their word for it? Experience teaches even the FBI Director’s word is worthless. Given the last four years, Americans can reasonably believe if an FBI employee’s lips are moving, they’re lying.

Still, even some agents who worked on infamous, politically weaponized, cases probably did it because they have families to feed, mortgages and utilities to pay and pensions to earn. It’s easy to say they should have refused, but experience also teaches whistleblowers and other ethical people don’t do well under D/s/c control. Not every Agent is a D/s/c-DEI true believer, and at least some must be relieved and encouraged by the possibility of restored institutional integrity.

It will be important for competent investigators to interview every current FBI agent. Review their performance records. Determine if they are DEI hires. Find out if they’re functionally illiterate or otherwise incompetent. It will be relatively easy to fire those.

More demanding will be the interviews of people who violated the rights of Americans. Did they do it for the understandable reasons I’ve suggested, or are they true believers, petty tyrants who like hurting the innocent, amoral thugs who wanted to be on what they thought was the winning side? If they’re the latter, they obviously can’t be trusted.

But if they’re the former, give them the opportunity to make amends. They’ll have to demonstrate their willingness to tell everything they know about wrongdoing at every level. Honest people being forced to do what they knew was wrong would surely have kept evidence of illegal/unethical orders and actions, e-mails, letters, photos, videos, you name it, and they’ll have to hand it all over. If they’ll do that with complete honesty, they get to stay, but under close supervision for an appropriate period.

That process will benefit a restored FBI by keeping experienced and potentially honest people on the job. But the greatest benefit will be in discovering why the FBI became so corrupt, who corrupted it, and who deserves to face the prosecution they so cruelly forced on the innocent. 

This must be done by scrupulously observing the law and professional practice. Every potential defendant must be afforded the full due process denied to so many Americans. And, of course, the same process must be applied to the DOJ, whose bureaucrats's names and actions are going to be revealed by FBI interviews anyway.

Moving FBI Headquarters to say, Rapid City, SD or Casper, WY might not be a bad idea either. I hear the FBI is planning to move out of the old building soon.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.