Why is the Intercept apologizing for the FBI? OK they aren't but...kudos to Greenwald for running it since it seems to go against what he has been arguing pretty vociferously...
THE FBI ROUTINELY ABUSES ITS POWERS BUT THE TRUMP INVESTIGATION HAS BEEN BY THE BOOK
Trevor Aaronson
December 20 2017, 1:14 a.m.
“THE FBI HAS become America’s secret police.”
Gregg Jarrett was just getting started. It was December 6, and the Fox News legal analyst was a guest on Sean Hannity’s show. They were kicking off what would become the newest right-wing talking points about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
“Secret surveillance, wiretapping, intimidation, harassment, and threats,” Jarrett continued. “It’s like the old KGB that comes for you in the dark of the night, banging through your door.”
“By the way, this not a game,” Hannity interjected. “This is not hyperbole you’re using here.”
“No. Ask Paul Manafort,” Jarrett replied, referring to the FBI’s search of the former Trump campaign manager’s home. “They came for him and broke through his front door.”
“And if it can happen to him, Gregg,” Hannity offered.
“It can happen to all of us,” Jarrett continued. “Absolutely.”
This message — that the FBI is overly aggressive and politically motivated — is cropping up again and again on Fox News, bellowed by right-wing pundits and elected officials like Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. A Fox commentator, Todd Starnes, even asked point-blank, “Was the FBI weaponized to take down the Trump presidency?” A chyron on the network was yet more succinct: “A coup in America?”
All of this carries forward the rhetoric of a president who has tweeted insults at the FBI since his election. On December 3, for example, Trump tweeted that the FBI’s “reputation is in Tatters — worst in History!” In his latest burst in the past week, Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, “It’s a shame what’s happened to the FBI.” The context is quite obvious: The president and his supporters are worried that Mueller, a former FBI director, will find reasons for impeachment, and they’re on the attack to undermine the credibility of the FBI and the special counsel.
Right-wing media and politicians aren’t entirely wrong about the FBI. It is a secret police that bangs down people’s doors, follows Americans, intercepts digital communications, digs through trash, and harasses and threatens potential informants or targets of criminal investigations. In fact, civil rights activists and left-wing groups have been complaining about this for more than 50 years. And since the 9/11 attacks, Muslims in the United States have been subjected to an unprecedented level of intrusive surveillance. A common joke in mosques around the country: “Whenever I pray on Friday, I just assume the man next to me is an FBI informant.”
While it’s entirely true that the FBI has few checks on its power, right-wing media did not rouse itself until allegations emerged that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian intelligence agents. What’s amusing about the right’s sudden anti-FBI hysteria is that little evidence suggests Mueller’s investigation has been anything but by the book.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/19/fbi ... n-mueller/