I almost joined the FBI. Even I can’t believe it. Looking back on my years as a newly-minted lawyer, I can’t say I put myself through much fevered soul-searching or youthful brain-squeezing about what I wanted to do with my life. Jersey kids with meager funds typically don’t “ponder” their career options whilst on sabbatical in Provence, France. We work. Sooner or later, a career “Job” finds you. As Bruce says: “No wedding day smiles, no walk down the isles…” That’s about it.
Introduction:
Yes… I almost joined the FBI. Here’s how it happened.
So, it’s 1978 and I’m finally a lawyer. The world is my oyster, right? Not.
I worked my way through law school. It was a tough slog. I was a High School teacher. Yes, in Jersey. What city? Not important. It was good community. Blue collar. With good kids, mostly. Quit in my tenure year. Boy was that a mistake….. Youthful exuberance, indeed.
Growing up in New Jersey, kids live according to a code – more like a philosophy: Run Towards Daylight. Even if they never actually say it, they live it. Most times there ain’t a Hell of a lot of choices here – just the ones that present themselves while you’re scraping along, trying to make ends meet. You hope. You mark time. You keep the shitbox running and a roof over your head. And food. Don’t forget eats.
Oh yeah – dreams, Everybody got “dreams”. Want some reality? As my grandmother said: “Dream in one hand and crap in the other one and see which hand fills up faster”.
The offical New Jersey State motto, emblazoned on the offical State Crest, should be Run Towards Daylight. Here, people do what they gotta’ do. And in the unlikely event some freshman at Princeton University is reading this with a dumb-ass quizzical expression on his or her face thinking for the first time in their useless life: “Oh dear…..Am I only here because Daddy was Princeton Class of 84′? Daddy’s picture is up there on the wall of the Yankee Doodle Taproom on Nassau Street, you know….Next to Michelle Obama…..” Here’s my message: Newsflash: Screw You.
Deus ex machina: The Cruel Tutelage of Newark G-Men
(*names have been changed, of course)
Way back. 1975. First year of law school. Somebody asks me where I went to college. I tell him. He grimaces. I ask him where he went. He says “Bucknell”. I think to myself – What the F–k is a Bucknell??
I later see him as he blazes past me in the school parking lot – drivin’ a smokin’ hot model “2002iTurbo” BMW. He waves. I’m sitting in my beat-up ’68 Mustang listening to clicks the ignition switch is making every time I turn the key. Dead battery. Ahhh….good times.
I graduate. I pass the Bar. It’s 1978.
I get a job hustling divorces at some cheesy Matrimonial Law firm. What a shitshow. I recall pleading with a judge to award increased child support to a client – the very day my boss reads me the riot act before I leave for Court….get an increase of 25% or don’t show up for work again.
The judge isn’t persuaded. On the bench he blusters out loud – “10% is sufficient”.
I plead, voice cracking.
“….but Judge, these are children of tender years!!!!”
He laughs out loud – and eviscerates me.
“Oh yeah? That’s a few months older than you, eh Counsellor? “
The court room erupts in laughter. Litigants, lawyers, Court Officers – everybody is howling.
An older lawyer follows me to the elevator. Once inside he introduces himself and offers me a job. I accept on the spot. Negligence cases – for the defense. I’m gonna’ represent insurance companies. It’s me against scumbag ambulance chasers. The only rule? Don’t pay fraudsters. Ever.
I like trial work and slowly become good at it. The people that should be paid, are – and the bullshitters take it on the arches.
Then, one night, I tag along with some girl I know to an event at Caldwell College. She’s an administrator there. She introduces me to her matronly boss and a serious looking guy her boss is standing next to – the husband, I surmise. There’s small talk. The guy is straightforward, a no bullshit type. But mysterious. I like him immediately.
I see Mr. Mystery a few more times out socially – that girl I know likes the fact that I’m an escort who wants nothing physical from her (lesbians were quite careful back then…).
Turns out this guy is “ASAIC” (Assistant Special Agent In Charge) of the FBI in Newark. “Come up to the Office and we’ll see if you’re FBI material….” he suggests.
I cover litigation files in Essex County so I’m always in Newark. What the Hell.
“Will do”, I say. Next week I’m on my way to see the “ASAIC” of the FBI in New Jersey.
Let’s call him “William”.
Now this is 1980. Jimmy Carter is President. Mortgage Interest rates are through the roof. Real unemployment is north of ten percent in most states. The economy is in the toilet. Gas is shockingly high – if you can get it at all after standing in gas station lines on odd/even days. Crazy times. No cell phones for another ten years. Gotta’ use filthy phone booths everywhere. Bad crime. I’ve picked up yet another shitbox Mustang but moneywise I’m still on the balls of my ass. I seriously regret quitting my teaching job.
Here I am, all five foot eleven inches and one hundred thirty pounds of me, in a sale-rack Macy’s (basement) suit, traipsing through the elegant lobby of a marble office building West of Newark Penn Station. Just off Raymond Blvd. One Gateway Center. The home of big, prestigious law firms, accounting firms and corporate offices – all of which won’t hire me on a bet.
I get off the elevator on floor twelve. I feel eyes burning the back of my head as the doors open and a huge crest appears on a wall directly up front.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity.
There’s a little window with sliding glass panels and a rather pleasant woman sitting behind it. She smiles at me while she opens one of the glass panes.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes….I’m…er….here to see WIlliam ——” I say, awkwardly adjusting my tie like a skinny, pathetic Rodney Dangerfield.
Her face betrays no change or emotion. Her smile is constant. Like a creepy latex mask in a Rob Zombie movie.
“Please have a seat and someone will be out to collect you shortly”.
I sit down on an institutional couch and pick up an dog-eared “Field and Stream” magazine from a table nearby. I absent-mindedly thumb through it for a few minutes when a man in his early thirties emerges from a doorway across the room. The door he comes through is tastefully obscured to blend in with the opposite wall. He walks towards me, right arm extended.
“Mr. Croft! How good to meet you….I’m Special Agent Charles Pender”.
I shake his hand and we exchange pleasantries. I follow him through the slick wall-papered-over door and we emerge into a corridor of offices, glass-enclosed meeting areas and serious looking employees all moving, undulating in a sustained, purposeful motion. Carrying papers, files , ledgers, boxes. Putting their burdens down and picking up more – changing direction, pivoting on left foot, then right.
Really odd. There’s nowhere near the cacophony all this movement should generate. All noise seems blunted somehow, reduced to a kind of muffled, shuffling scurry. Everybody has somewhere to go and a driving purpose to get there. They go about their business with as little fuss and extraneous noise as they can. They aren’t disinterested or cold to each other as much as they are respecting each other’s space and concentration. There’s an air of relentless efficiency to the place. As far as human interaction goes, these people are chess pieces moving themselves around a board only they can see. They are all in the game.
Special Agent Pender leads me to a room and asks me to wait inside until I am called for. He closes the door behind him. I notice a rather intense looking guy about my age seated on a metal chair directly across from me.
“Always take the chair facing the only door in the room”, He says. His eyes are intense, devoid of humor.
“Right” I respond, trying to figure out just what the Hell he means. Perhaps some Army training bullshit. I approach him, extending my hand.
“I’m Jon Croft”
He stares at me and draws his eyes up and down my body, taking in the cut of my jib, as it were.
“Bob McCoyne” , he says. He shakes my hand with one of those bone cracking, my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours, handshakes.
We trade some small talk. Bob is a “crack” salesman at Zerox. Copiers and such. He’s made “Executive Sales Award Tier One” five years in a row and a “ton of money”…….married to Sally. He shows me a picture.
She’s hot. Trophy hot. Blonde and juicy. Mmmm. Me Likeee.
He purposefully stands up to stretch. His physique is impressive. A well-built, muscle-ripped, jug-headed Mick. Says he’s a graduate of Fordham Law and Fordham undergrad. Catholic by the looks of the religious medal that creeps through his shirt opening. Yammers on like a salesman. Serious blarney issues. Asks me similar, droll questions. I punt.
“They put us in the same room, you know, to see if we kill each other….” Bob says, deadpan serious.
“Excuse me?” I try to act disinterested. This man has lost his marbles.
“Yeah, Man. That’s what they do. I swear there’s only one job open and they’re probably watching us through some secret camera to see who’s the Alpha Male.…” Bob puffs up his chest as if to annouce, it’s me.
I let out a controlled chuckle. I don’t want to provoke this nut case.
“Well you’ve certainly got the muscles, there Bob. I defer to your obvious physical fitness…….” I throw in another chuckle for good measure.
“I run about five miles a day – and do two hundred pushups a day” Bob says, now beaming with red-faced pride. His carrot-hue crew cut is perfect, not a red wire out of place. “How much you run, Jon?”
I lie. “Oh, about a mile or so….I don’t watch distance much. I just dig the rush, ya’ know?”
“You shoot, Jon?”
Again, I’m not diggin’ his show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine interrogation.
“Shoot what, Bob?” I ask, returning his eager stare with a cautious focus.
“Guns…..handguns…..you know?” Bob’s face now broadcasts his unfailingly accurate marksmanship. He’s the best. The strongest. The smartest. The best shot. The prettiest wife. I utter a silent prayer.
Dear God, get me the F–k Out of this room!!!
Before I can answer Bob – that is, before I can whip up a whopper lie about my years as a sniper in US Army Special Forces in ‘Nam (absolutely untrue), the door opens. Two clean-cut (is everbody clean-cut here?) short-haired Choirboys in matching suits escort Bob and me down separate hallways inside the maze that is FBI Headquarters. I’m certain I am being shown the gate – the refuse elevators that go straight down to the street, like a mail chute. I tell myself – See? They were listening and they want Mickey-McPatty-Melt the paranoid, muscle-bound Irish blarney salesman. They don’t want skinny, scrawny, unremarkable Croft.
What a waste of time………..
Then my Choirboy guide does something entirely unexpected. He shows me into an office with windows overlooking the Passaic River and trainyards down below the building. There’s a big desk and bookcase. Pictures on the desk of a wife and kids. And a dog. The bookcase is full. I spy the multi-volume works of Winston Churchill. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. The Confessions of Saint Augustine. The two volume set of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. Voltaire’s Candide. Countless others. This is one ecclectic dude or dudette. I wanna’ meet this person.
“Please sit down and Special Agent Bremer will be with you shortly”, says the Choirboy.
My chair allows me to take in a magnificent panorama of Newark. It may be hard and grimy down below but from up here it’s amazing. Years later it’ll be the famous backdrop for Tony Soprano’s opening scene in every episode with that great “…Got yo’self a gun…” music score.
Within minutes Special Agent Bremer enters and sits down at his desk. He’s monotone and all business. Middle aged, tall, sporting a sharply cut navy blue suit, deep burgundy tie, grey hair combed to the side. Brown eyes. Straight teeth. You know – the guy who took Iwo Jima all by himself. Raised the flag and all. Then came home and performed the first heart transplant while impregnating his wife.
“So you’re Croft?” He asks. His voice is pleasant. Everybody’s voice here is soooo pleasant. Like some weird Village of the Damned. What’s up with this place?
“Yes, Sir.” I play it safe. Formal and minimalist.
“Why do you want to become an FBI Special Agent?”
“I don’t know if I do yet. This is as much my evaluation of the FBI as it is your evaluation of me”. I’m sending a message: I ain’t desperate. I ain’t salivating like a dog, here, Schlomo. If you want to sell me, better start shakin’ your money maker.
“You know, Croft, the young man you were in the waiting room with told us that his lifelong dream is to be an FBI Agent – that he would sacrifice everything he has to realize his dream….what do you think of that?”
I stare at Bremer’s emotionless face and resist an impulse to smile at the absurdity of his queston. I punt.
“Well…Special Agent Bremer. If McCoyne said he’d sacrifice everything he has to be an FBI Agent, I think he’s crazy. I’ve seen a picture of his wife. She’s scrumptious...”
No reaction. None.
“What is it that you think the FBI does, Croft?”
“Domestic Federal crime investigations…..the CIA got the offshore business portfolio, I believe. FBI does the onshore stuff – organized crime. interstate Crime.”
“What interests you?”
“All of the above, actually. I just don’t know anything about the FBI”.
Bremer shifts a bit in his chair.
“You have doubts that you’d fit in?” He asked, measuring his words somewhat. Surprisingly gentle….almost. A crafty voice modulation.
“Well, it’s all a bit intimidating. But I’d like to kick the tires. See what makes it all tick”.
“Alright then”. Bremer hands me a thick envelope. “Here is our standard FBI Special Agent Application. There are many forms. We’ll need transcripts from every educational insitution you ever attended. Reference letters from every boss or supervisor you’ve ever had – good or bad – and a letter from your Priest, Minister, Rabbi, Guru or Spiritual Mentor. We’ll need names of every significant relationship with the opposite – or same – sex you’ve ever had. Give us the names and we’ll decide what is “significant” or not. We’ll need six references from persons of achievement and character.
We’ll need your complete medical records and pharmacy bills. You’ll undergo a physical exam. You’ll undergo a number of psychological exams. You may be sent to another facility in another state – at our expense, of course. We will not ask you. We will tell you and you will comply.
Take your time and see that each section of your application is complete. As you complete each numbered component of the package, drop it off so we can commence investigation, interviews and furthur face-to-face discussions. Any inattention to detail will be construed as an attempt at prevarication or evasiveness – and your file will be closed.
You will not be told “how you are doing” through this application process. We will call you in for future conferences and examinations as we see fit. Miss one appointment and we close your file. The entire process can take upwards of a year. When we’re satisfied, you’ll be ordered to Quantico, Virginia. If you survive Quantico, the FBI will decide whether or not to accept you as a Special Agent. Are you still interested?”
I take the package and heft it to figure how much it weighs. It feels like a phone book.
“Yes”, I say with as much conviction as I can muster. Survive Quantico?? That can’t be good….
Special Agent Bremer pinions me with his eyes.
“One more thing, Croft”. He talks in a low, menacing monotone – Like some Film Noir heavy.
“One lie. Just one. And you’re done. Understand?”
“Yes, Sir”. I say. The “done” part doesn’t sit well. It’s all a bit much. Everything seems overlaid with subliminal passive-aggressive drama shit. I wonder what I’m getting myself into.
A few weeks later I get a surprise phone call from Mr. Mystery, William ——-. The “ASAIC” himself. He’s “pleasant”, of course. Everybody in this organization is unfailingly, oppressively, suffocatingly “pleasant”. Do any of these people originate in New Jersey? Are they all transplants from Ohio or Oz?
“I wanted to advise you that I’m transferring to the St. Louis, Missouri, office. It’s been nice meeting you – and I wish you God Speed on your application…”
I thanked him for his kindness and hung up.
“God Speed”? Oh well. There goes my friends-in-high-places connection.
I assemble as much information as I can and send in Section One of the five part application packet.
Then, at about eight o’clock on a Wednesday night, I get a phone call.
“Mr. Croft? This is Special Agent Donlevy of the FBI. Please come in at three o’clock tomorrow, main lobby.”
“Excuse me”, I pipe up alarmed. “I’ve got a Case Management Conference before Judge Ferrante in Superior Court, Essex County tomorrow at three o’clock….”
“Your Case Management Conference tomorrow – Bozeman vs. Ames Commercial Van Lines – is reassigned to Judge Morris and has been adjourned. We will expect you tomorrow. Good bye.”
Wow.
I show up at One Gateway Center, twelfth floor at 3:00PM the next day. Special Agent Donlevy is waiting for me. He might as well be wearing priests’ robes. There’s that clamped-up-ass-cheeks vibe that I’ve come to expect. He leads me through the now-familiar “obscured ” door to the sanctum sanctorum. Yet another room. An Agent is seated at a table. I sit down.
“Mr. Croft? I am Special Agent Scrypski. I have your file here. May we commence?”
I’m tempted to mutter “Let ‘er rip, tater chip”, but I reconsider.
“Yes” I reply.
“Mr. Croft, it appears that your maternal grandfather was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, correct?”
“That’s what I reported. I attached his Russian Orthodox Baptismal Document because his birth certificate was unobtainable. He later became a naturalized US Citizen.
“And his profession was….
“He was a blacksmith. Had a big handlebar mustache. Died in 1959 in Bayonne, NJ, from cancer. I submitted his Death Certificate”.
“Mr. Croft, it appears your Grandfather came here from Russia in 1927. How did he get out?”
“Out “? I ask, feigning confusion.
“Out of Russia.” Scrypski replies, his face now slightly contorted with distain.
He’s a true Pole. Carrying some ethnic grudge against Russians his grandparents must’ve passed along.
So I tell him. What my mother told me. Somehow my grandfather was allowed to travel to Lithuania where he disappeared – most likely with the help of some family friends. He made his way to Sweden. Somehow he wound up in the USA. That’s all I know.
Scrypski looks uncomfortable. Like he needs to fart.
“Most fascinating….” He replies. “Were you close to him?”
“No. He died in 1959. I was seven years old. I just know he had a big mustache”.
Scrypski is on a roll. Like a dog with a bone – a Russian bone.
And are you close to your mother?”
“Extremely. She is a kind, loving person. Bright, too. She reads Pushkin in the original Russian and drinks tea from little crystal glasses with silver holders. Brews her special black tea in an authentic Russian Samovar. She sings French songs to me when I’m sick and dries my tears when I’m hurt. Anything else?”
I lay it on thick, I want to burn this dickhead’s ass.
Scrypski looks like he’s still wrestling with that fart.
Things go to rapid-fire shit real quick.
“You’re not close to your father?”
“Not particularly”, I respond.
“Your materials say you speak some Russian. Are you fluent?”
“I can understand Russian better than I can speak it. I was brought up speaking English.
“Do you like to travel, Mr. Croft?”
“No. But traveling out of this room would tickle me fine.”
“Do you have unresolved issues with your father, Mr. Croft?”
“Why don’t you tell me – you seem to have all the answers…..”
“One final question. What is your faith?”
I show him the Russian Orthodox Crucifix under my shirt.
A loud electric buzz and click shatters the awkward funk in our room. The door is unlocked behind me. Scrypski doesn’t look up from his papers.
“Good bye, Mr. Croft”.
More frequent evening phone calls summon me to ever more FBI meetings always set on short notice. My litlgation schedule always seems clear for them. My personal schedule and priorities are of no particular interest to anyone. When they call, I show up at the appointed time and place. It becomes a kind of macabre, protracted hemorroid treatment. I show up with additional completed application materials – and my charming sarcastic repartee’. Humor and sarcasm seems to disorient them.
Rapid questioning is their preferred method. They love it. They work themselves into frenzies.
“Do you like guns?”
“Should I? I never used one…”
“Would you be reluctant to use a weapon?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t you?”
“What if your life was in danger?”
“Then I would fire. Can’t guarantee I’d hit anything…”
“Would you object to carrying a weapon?”
“No. Does my suit have to be specially tailored for that? You guys got special tailors?”
“Were you ever in a fist fight?”
“Sure. Once. We pushed and shoved, mostly. I think I hit him on his ear. Had something to do with a girl. I was drinkin’ Tequila.”
“Ever box inside a ring?”
“Sure. In High School. Got the shit kicked outta’ me.”
“So you fight when you drink?’
“Only when I drink Tequila…so…I don’t drink Tequila.”
“Did your mother ever go back to Russia?”
“How could she go back to someplace she’d never been before?”
“That’s right. It was your Grandfather who was Russian.”
“My Grandfather died an American Citizen”.
” Know many Russians in your Orthodox Church?”
“I don’t belong to any particular Church”.
“You Bless yourself backwards?
“I Bless myself the proper way, not the improper Catholic way.
“You talk Russian to your mother?”
“Only when I tell her that I love her.”
“Your father was in the US Navy in World War Two. Why didn’t you serve your Country in Viet Nam?”
“I drew number 326 in the 1970 Draft Lottery. Just lucky, I guess.”
As instructed, I report to New Jersey University Hospital in Newark for a physical exam. I’m told to set aside two whole days. I get full-body x-rays and am groped everywhere. There’s a “Running Stress Test” on an industrial-strength treadmill with all kinds of cameras, sensors and body-wiring. I run until I feel like I’m losing control of my bowels. Even my sphincter hurts. I’m heaving for breath and cross-eyed from oxygen saturation. I’m soaked in sweat and seeing double. I’m pissing myself. My urine is brown and it burns.
My legs feel like they’re broken. I’ve got pain in every organ of my body. I’m dragging myself from room to room. I’m given water. I instantly puke it up. Finally, I’m told to lay down on a gurney. The medical aide assigned to me isn’t impressed. He doesn’t approve.
“You don’t exercise regularly, do you?”
I resist the urge to tell him to F–k Off. My voice croaks like a frog as I respond.
“Define regularly?”
They take eight vials of blood outta’ my left arm. Some ugly phlebotomist who looks like a female lawn ornament extracts it. Sticks me four times with the Godamn needle before she gets a draw. The rubber tube connected to my arm squiggles out of her hand and gushing blood soaks my open-backed garment before the ugly gnome can clamp it off. I look like a crime scene. I smell like shit.
But for the ringing in my ears, I feel dead.
Psychological tests are adminstered. Multiple sessions.
I’m barraged with endless obtuse and outright inane questions by a pasty-faced, white-coated clinician. All responses are recorded on tape.
Batshit queries like –
“Where would you rather live – in a lighthouse or on a farm?”
“Would you rather take a train or use a bicycle?”
“Do you sing when you hike?”
“Should butterscotch be applied to corduroy if there is no full moon?”
“Do you eat cheese while visiting your medical doctor?”
“Do you vote in mid-term elections on vacation days?”
“Would you travel if both your shoes didn’t match?”
“Do you prefer leather-bound books or paperbacks?”
“How many times have you lost your library card?”
“If you met Jesus would you comb his hair?”
“How many sailboats would you race in a regatta if financing was arranged by barbers?”
“Would you hitchhike a ride on a submarine?”
“If animals could talk, would you teach them poetry?”
“Would you give your neighbor a flat tire?”
“Do lightbulbs cause you to think of winter?”
“Is clothing acceptible when living under a bridge?”
“Is wearing a beard during the month of March a sign of weakness?”
“Can your socks be tight if your shoes are roomy?”
You get the idea. I don’t have the slightest Frickin’ idea how to answer this claptrap – but I do the best I can.
I see Patty-Melt McCoyne at one one of these Psych exam marathons. He’s sweating profusely and mumbling to himself. He looks like a super-sized, demented fire hydrant in a suit. His face is splotched amber and his hands shake like he’s got the DTs. I want to ask him how his hot wife is but don’t think it’s the right time.
Six months pass. Then nine. Countless meetings, command performances and repeat psychological bullshit sessions. Finally I’m sitting in front of three Senior Choirboys on a kind of makeshift dias.
“We’re here to answer your questions” They say.
I got a few – but only one slips out my mouth.
“When is this process going to be over?”
I can’t stand this shit anymore. It’s casting a pall over my life.
They say – almost in unison – go home now.
Unimaginable relief washes over me.
This long science experiment I put myself through is over.
I almost feel like myself again.
A week later I get a fat letter in the mail. They want me at Quantico in two weeks. WTF???? All kinds of papers and directives. Releases to sign. Even a map how to get to Virginia. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the balls. I didn’t see this comin’.
I drink scotch. Lots of scotch. Johnny Walker – not cheap shit.
I drink for days.
I send them a “Thanks-but-no-thanks” letter.
Another evening telephone call – this time they “request” I come in. “To tie up loose ends” they say. Tomorrow at 3:00PM.
I saunter in wearing faded jeans and beat-up Nocona cowboy boots. A Triumph motorcycle jacket (that I still have) over a washed-out denim shirt. No tie. I got the longest hair in the building. I’m unshaven.
Nobody bats an eye.
I’m led to a room with an empty chair and three older “SA’s” all dressed identically – more or less – already seated.
I’m told that despite my rough edges they would work with me to adjust – if I reconsidered my decision not to leave for Quantico.
They say they’re aware of my, um…deficits.
I politely decline.
I’m ready to take my rough edges and deficits on the road.
But I can’t leave just yet.
“Can I ask you guys something?”
If I don’t ask it, my head’s gonna explode…I gotta’ know….
The Choirboy triumverate nods in unison.
“Why me? I don’t shoot guns – even like guns…..I’m skinny, I’m in horseshit physical condition….I got a bad attitude…I mean – did you send the same invitation letter to McCoyne?
The dude in the middle answers me – but not before glancing at his comrades.
“No, Mr. Croft. We did not ask the person you mentioned to join us. We don’t seek out people enamoured with guns or physical fitness. We want people who think….”
I’m satisfied. It’s closure on good terms.
Epilogue:
.
Did the FBI’s great vetting processs catch the deficits of guys like:
– FBI “Director” James Comey;
– FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe;
– Deputy Attorney General “Rod” Rosenstein;
– James Clapper (vetted by FBI for CIA);
– FBI Investigator Peter Strzok;
-Christopher Steele – former British MI6;
I guess not. Perhaps they no longer seek to hire people who “think” – like they told me back in 1980. Maybe this roster of clowns just slippped through the cracks. Became FBI leaders and policy wonks by mistake.
Right.
Where is J. Edgar Hoover when we need him? I know he wasn’t perfect (that’s called “understatement”, by the way…) but at least he bagged John Dillinger and Alfonse Capone. These days the FBI looks like an aged, sagging bar-fly in a torn dress chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and sucking down cheap rye. Her Hoover-esque reputation is a thing of the past. Nobody trusts this diva anymore.
Most Americans – including me – believed in the FBI. Now they don’t.
Oh well, I guess there’s always Fox Mulder and The X-Files.
I became an Assistant Prosecutor in NJ some years after I refused the FBI invitation to Quantico. Worked for a County Prosecutor who’d personally put Mafia Dons in Jail and was as straight as an arrow. Tough as nails and honest. I took part in wiretaps, applications for Search Warrants and prosecutions of really bad people. We never – not once – submitted unverified Affidavits or proofs in support of investigative Warrants. We had teams of Assistant Prosecutors in place cross-checking and back-checking everything we put in front of a Judge’s face.
Why?
Because the US Constitution matters, that’s why.
Copyright, 2021, Jon Croft.
(PS: How ya’ doin’ there, Virginia?)
