FBI

How much more do we need to learn about 2016 to realize the agency is a disaster?

In ignoring the latest John Durham indictment, most of the media and official Washington are ignoring the elephant between its lines: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. Durham, the special counsel appointed to investigate the government’s handling of the Russia collusion mess, levels a single criminal charge against Michael Sussmann, then a lawyer for the Democrat-linked firm Perkins Coie. In delivering to the FBI fanciful evidence of Trump-Russia collusion a few weeks before the 2016 election, Mr. Sussmann is alleged to have lied to the FBI’s chief lawyer, James Baker, claiming he was acting on his own behalf and not as a paid agent of the Clinton campaign.

The most vexing mystery of Larry Nassar’s reign of terror at USA Gymnastics isn’t why the organization protected the serial predator. After all, as long as everyone turned a blind eye to the doctor molesting hundreds of gymnasts, Nassar never spoke up about USAG’s own brutal non-sexual abuse of the girls. The real question is why, once the FBI did finally find out about the abuse allegations, they refused to do anything about them.

A Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report found that FBI special agents asked female support staff employees to provide photos for online undercover operations without any oversight. One special agent used the photographs of female employees to pose as underage girls without informing their supervisors and without documenting which sites the photos were uploaded to, according to the report.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) continues its downward spiral into terminal corruption. Sadly, the scandals, criminality and ethical abuses of the organization are largely ignored by the American public and by the institutions of government charged with oversight and correction. Outrage after outrage is reported, hearings are held, Inspector General reports are issued — but the systemic corruption is never really tackled and dirty cops skate away virtually unscathed.

This situation is constitutionally unacceptable, corrosive to public trust in law enforcement, and a threat to the survival of the republic.

Angry, and armed, the militiamen in Michigan were gearing up, getting ready to unleash their fury over an unjust government and zeroing in on a target who they believed upended their lives with pandemic restrictions: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

They trained with live assault weapons; skulked around Whitmer’s summer mansion in the dark as they allegedly plotted a wild scheme to kidnap her, even relying on an Iraq war veteran among them for his tactical experience.

The FBI was thrown into controversy on Tuesday afternoon following an explosive report that was published by BuzzFeed News that suggested that the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer may have never even happened if not for the actions that FBI informants and undercover agents had in spurring suspects into action in what many critics called “entrapment.”