The raid of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida was unprecedented and smacked of political retribution from a Democratic regime that has no love lost for the former commander-in-chief.
It turns out that the politicization of the agency is exactly why those agents were sent there, and that comes from a now-retired ranking FBI official, former Assistant Director Chris Swecker, who says the bureau has been pressured into illegal domestic spying and engaging in acts of censorship of conservatives, according to Just the News.
Swecker, a retired "chief of criminal investigations, says his old agency has yielded the independence Congress gave it under the law and is now subservient to a group of liberal ideologues inside the Justice Department who have pressured agents to stray into unwarranted domestic spying and censorship," the outlet reported.
This week, Swecker became the latest law enforcement or political figure to voice support for the creation of an independent commission fashioned after the 1970s-era Church Committee in the Senate to probe the FBI's political abuses and practices aimed at proposing reforms that Congress could then enact. In an interview with the outlet, he said the problem begins with the fact that the agency has been turned into a political police force serving the Democrat-friendly deep state.
"What I see is that it's basically a wholesale takeover by the Department of Justice, which is filled with political appointees in every top position, and then by extension, right into the administration," Swecker said.
"You see DOJ people — and many of the top executive positions inside the FBI now — you see people that have made a career out of bouncing in and out of silk-stocking law firms between the Department of Justice and then these law firms. And I have to say they are incredibly liberal in their politics," he continued. "And that has now sort of taken over the FBI, and they are inserting that ideology into their high-profile investigations."
The outlet notes further:
Swecker, a lawyer himself, said one of the many tell-tale signs that the FBI has lost its independence is the bureau's relationship with Big Tech firms, as exposed by recent internal file releases by Twitter and a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri.
The original partnerships, he said, were designed to legitimately counter foreign influence operations on U.S. social media but have since evolved into spying and censorship operations impacting Americans.
"The FBI has an industry outreach program to help exchange information with industry, helping in the counterintelligence efforts of the FBI. This has gone well beyond that," he said. "This is nothing but domestic spying, and this is nothing but suppression of First Amendment rights and ideas."
Swecker noted further that the FBI's efforts to pressure Twitter and other social media platforms to censor Americans with which officials disagree "needs to be the first line of inquiry" in the new Congress.
He joins several other prominent figures, such as incoming GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and former intelligence chief Kevin Brock, in backing the idea of a blue-ribbon commission to examine the FBI's actions and make recommendations for reform.
Swecker said as well that while he is friends with current FBI Director Christopher Wray, the bureau boss has nonetheless allowed his agency to suffer from a loss of confidence and trust among Americans.
"The Church Committee was a full inquiry into what were perceived to be some very serious abuses by the FBI in the domestic surveillance area, in terms of watching U.S. citizens doing things involving U.S. citizens that were considered to be abuses of their power," he said. "And I think we've come full circle here."
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