Members-Only Article
Like all upstanding Americans I’m eagerly awaiting the first hearing of the House GOP’s new “weaponization of the federal government” investigations committee. That first hearing will feature former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley and what is being presented as an FBI whistleblower of sorts, a former FBI agent named Nicole Parker who says she left the FBI three months ago in the face of growing politicization and unprofessionalism from the FBI brass. She’s now a regular on Fox News. So she’s the one who will reveal how the FBI has become a haven of wokeness during her 12-year tenure.
I looked her up and saw this opinion piece she wrote for Fox News. And in addition to a lot of verbiage about wokeness and how the Bureau changed during her time there, her one example of politicization was fairly revealing. Parker was offended that during the George Floyd protests in D.C. on June 4 a group of FBI agents in tactical gear kneeled before protestors in what they apparently saw as a deescalation effort.
Parker was upset at their genuflecting before antifa for which the agents faced no disciplinary action and were even offered $100 gift cards by the FBI Agents Association.
Here’s her own description from her opinion piece.
Lately, there has been one politicization issue after another at the FBI. Consider an example: on June 4, 2020, images and videos surfaced online of special agents in their FBI-marked ballistic vests kneeling to protesters in Washington, D.C., while on official duty protecting our nation’s institutions.
Although agents have their First Amendment rights, they are not at liberty to publicly express any potential political support while on duty wearing official FBI gear.
Some claimed they knelt for de-escalation purposes but images revealed some agents clapping and smiling! They hardly seemed to be in danger. In fact, the agents posted at another building nearby remained standing during the entire protest.
On top of that, there was no reprimand for any of the agents who knelt that day. In fact, many ended up getting highly sought-after promotions and were offered $100 gift cards by the FBI Agents Association.
For many agents nationwide, it was upsetting to see the lack of judgment by the kneelers, much less their apparent political statements while on the job. And the fact that they were treated like heroes by some FBI managers was appalling.
It’s as if there became two FBIs.
Of course, back on planet earth, the FBI is a highly conservative organization like virtually every other law enforcement entity in the United States. All of her tenure was under Republican FBI directors. You don’t have to look up her exact years of service to know that, because the FBI has literally never had a director who was not a Republican.
What is notable about Parker’s account is, first, that this was fairly obviously a deescalation tactic, as the agents in question appear to have claimed. But there were a number of cases at the time — often widely publicized — where police officers kneeled with protestors during the height of the George Floyd protests not only to deescalate in moments of confrontation but also as expressions of solidarity. There were certainly instances of violence and looting during the protests that spread around the country and went on for days. But by and large they were peaceful. At the time, and still to many now, it was clear that the protests were in response to a horrible incident — a casual and indifferent murderer filmed and televised around them — which is part of a larger story and history of racial discrimination, often deeply institutionalized in the fabric of American life, against African-Americans.
In Parker’s accounting, it is treated as a given that the protestors were enemies or borderline criminals to whom any gestures of solidarity or sympathy merited discipline or termination.
The other backdrop to Parker’s story comes in that reference to there being “two FBIs.” As noted, the FBI is a deeply conservative organization. Always has been. Its political tendencies have long been overwhelmingly Republican. That’s what has always made these “Deep State” gripes so absurd and offensive. The CDC and EPA may lean liberal. Not the FBI.
We hope and assume those political beliefs can be set to one side as officials carry out their work. But Parker’s anger here seems to be that there were some in the Bureau who might have at least somewhat different political sympathies.
