There’s a growing sense of urgency, especially among conservatives in Congress, that the FBI must be brought under effective oversight and fundamentally reformed to end its weaponization and to resecure our most basic freedoms. Monday, The Heritage Foundation issued a report that contains extensive suggestions that should be considered in rebuilding the FBI from the ground up.
The FBI’s record is nothing less than chilling. Since 9/11, the bureau has expanded its use of broad intelligence-gathering powers, increasingly directing them at political movements that the Left perceives threaten the Washington establishment and directing its surveillance at ordinary Americans’ exercise of free speech, religious liberties, and other constitutionally protected rights.
This dangerous trend led to the partisan abuses of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane operation to link Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to Russian interference in the election, as confirmed in damning detail in special counsel John Durham’s report.
Then-Director James Comey’s FBI fabricated the “Russian collusion” hoax to support the fraudulent misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, conducting a politicized assault on Trump’s presidential campaign while giving Hillary Clinton’s competing campaign protective treatment.