By David K. Shipler
The FBI has
never been entirely insulated from politics, especially during the long tenure
of J. Edgar Hoover, who in his 48 years as director (1924-72) compiled
compromising dossiers on government officials and private Americans that gave
him enormous leverage. His agency tried to provoke Martin Luther King Jr. to
suicide by threatening to publicize the civil rights leader’s womanizing. It
sent phony letters to wives of Black Panthers, purporting to be from their
mistresses. It conducted surveillance of labor leaders, members of Congress, and
at least one Supreme Court justice, funneling information to presidents from
Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson. (During the 1964 presidential campaign, LBJ
had the FBI report on the staff of his opponent, Barry Goldwater.)
The road
back to those days would be long and difficult, even with a President Trump who
lacks ethical and constitutional brakes. But it’s possible, and Trump’s next
moves will be telling. The first question is whom he’ll nominate to replace James
Comey, fired just days after Comey requested more assets for the FBI’s
investigation of Russian involvement in Trump’s campaign. The second question
is whether enough Senate Republicans will demand that the new director be
unassailably independent.
Because, make no mistake: Trump
wants to swing his weight around as decisively as possible, and no more
dramatically than in security and law enforcement. This is not only about
covering up a Russia connection; it is to set the stage for draconian measures
against Muslims after the next domestic terrorist attack, to emasculate investigations
into police brutality, and to turn the power of the FBI against political
dissent. Comey would probably have stood in the way. As bumbling as he was in
his public disclosures about the Clinton emails, he was also known as a
defender of the rule of law.
The FBI has a sordid history of
hunting for phantom communists, keeping loyalty files on hundreds of thousands
of Americans, wiretapping without warrants, and infiltrating and disrupting
antiwar and civil rights groups—especially under what the bureau called
COINTELPRO during the Cold War. Only in the 1970s, after the Church committee
exposed the broad swath of wrongdoing, were protections imposed. These included
restricting the FBI director to a 10-year term to preclude another Hoover
phenomenon. But the position has no job security, obviously, since the
president may fire at will.
