When I was coming of age in the 1960’s, the FBI were the good guys. When they were summoned, it was to reinforce police investigations, providing muscle if necessary.You felt safer when they were on-scene initiating their own investigations or chasing criminals across state lines, which was one of their Constitutional responsibilities. They performed their jobs with efficiency and a buttoned-down dress appearance including a stoic demeanor. The only group they were a threat to were those who broke the law.
Television and Hollywood both sensed the pulse of the public and produced shows and movies depicting the times and the dominant societal view of the FBI. From 1965-1974, ABC television broadcast the TV show, The F.B.I., starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Inspector Lewis Erskine, the star of the show. The episodes were based on actual cases and became one of tv’s longest-running shows, spanning 241 episodes. The show was so well-received that secretive FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover allowed the show’s producers to access the facilities of the FBI for production materials including the reconstruction of actual cases. Given the length of the series on tv, it was obvious that the FBI were welcomed and looked up to in all of America.
Hollywood got into the act in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The 1987 movie, The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness and Sean Connery, was a blockbuster smash, largely because of its historical content. The movie was about the destruction of the Capone Crime Syndicate In Chicago. Gangster eradication became perhaps Hoover’s main priority. The Capone takedown was the first of a long series of mob-busting by the Bureau that went on for decades.
But the FBI was not limited to taking down crime syndicates. As previously stated, it chased down and apprehended individuals crossing state lines—creeps like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and the Unabomber. One of the top-rated FBI movies of all time was the 1991 chiller” The Silence of the Lambs”, and it’s immediate sequel” Hannibal.” Again, the good guys to the rescue.
I was perusing the list of the Top 100 FBI films ever produced. I am sad to report that all of these films were produced before 2016. Understanding that the leadership of the FBI changed philosophy in the 1990’s—with the advent of political correctness thanks to the Clinton’s—it is not hard to see why there have been no big, successful movies made about the FBI in almost a decade.
Let’s find out why.
Thirty years ago, the FBI was involved in not one but two headline-making incidents that seriously tarnished the reputation of the heretofore bastion of American security and integrity, the FBI.
The first incident was the first bombing of the World Trade Center in NY City, February 1993. In 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated in his NY hotel by Egyptian immigrant El Sayyid Nesair who disdained Kahane’s rhetoric concerning the banning of all Arabs from Israel and disputed territories.( Nesair was the bodyguard of Sheik Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric who signed off on the bombing of the WTC) After Nesair’s arrest, the FBI carried off 47 boxes of evidence from his apartment including maps of the WTC- but did not analyze any of the information! Curiously he was not convicted of murder and, for a fee, became an FBI informer. Nesair said, in 1992, that a bomb was being manufactured and put in place for 1993. For some reason the FBI ignored his warning On February 26th the bomb detonated in the garage of the WTC. If this was not enough egg on the face of the FBI, read on.
Sheik Rahman, showed no remorse before being led away and incarcerated for life. In fact he warned the powers-that-be that the only reason that the WTC did not come down was due to a lack of funding! In 1997, FBI Director Lewis Freeh promised Congress more boots on the ground in search of the next bombing plot. By refusing to use new computer technology to connect the dots of the coming Armageddon, Freeh and the Clinton Administration set the table for the events of 9/11–that Sheik Rahman warned were coming!
In the same year, the FBI carried out the final, fateful raid of the Branch Dravidian residence in Waco, Texas. Then VP Biden-who else- was trumpeting his eternal domestic terrorism propaganda to the press. Someone at the bureau of the ATF(Alcohol Tobacco Firearms) got wind that there might be illegal weapons inside the somewhat secretive Davidian compound. David Korean, the leader of the compound, actually invited an AFT agent to enter the premises without a search warrant but the agent declined.(Years later in 1999, under legal pressure the ATF released a memo that Koresh had been asked by two agents to go out for a friendly fire shooting date) Does this seem to be a course of action for domestic terrorists to be engaged in?
Nevertheless, the ATF decided to send 76 armed agents plus a TV crew to the compound. It did not go as planned Four agents and eight Dravidian’s were killed in this illegal raid. Humiliated, and not taking no for an answer, the ATF used National Guard helicopters to fly over and shoot into the Davidians home. When this failed to dislodge the inhabitants the ATF was relegated to the sidelines. At this point this should have been the end of the incident.
The FBI then made a fateful decision They decided to raid the compound using a brigade of tanks, military-grade. Even with the tanks at their disposal it took 51 days before the FBI got frustrated and burnt the compound to the ground killing 80 civilians trapped inside. At the time the press spun this as domestic terrorism run amok but as the truth emerged years later the general population saw the new direction of a burgeoning tyrannical government with a new-found fear of the FBI.
Fast forward to the present. The FBI has clearly lost its way. It has become a surveillance state onto itself practicing selective enforcement of the law at best and tyranny at its worst.
Current Attorney General, Merrick Garland, may be the most hated man in an awful Biden Administration, who one day may be the subject of an impeachment if not criminal charges. Garland had sicced the FBI on parents at school board meetings whose only offense is the protest over the imposition of Critical Race Theory into their school’s curriculum without input. Garland has sent the FBI to harass practicing Catholics, whose only offense is the criticism of liberal reforms to the church, yet be equated with white supremacist ideology.
Garland and the FBI have been colluding with Big Tech to censor the speech of Americans who criticize the administration. Not long ago Roger Stone, who was a Trump political strategist, was dragged out of his house in shackles in a pre-dawn raid simply for the “crime” of poking fun at the Biden Administration. Biden was up to his old tricks by telling a CNN crew to be there to witness and record the arrest. Garland’s FBI also was involved in a similar raid at the residence of Mark Houck, whose only “ crime “ was being a Pro-Life advocate in front of an abortion clinic. For this offense 20-30 FBI agents decided to arrest Houck and terrorize his seven young children and wife.
Does this sound like your father’s FBI?
Let’s take a look at what the FBI has failed to investigate by its own volition.It failed to look into the fake Russiagate charges against former President Trump that partially caused Trump not to be re-elected. It had failed to launch any investigations in re to the Antifa terrorists who laid torch to hundreds of cities during the 2020 George Floyd “mostly peaceful” riots. The FBI claims that only organized groups, such as the Boogaloos were to be scrutinized. The Bureau claims that the Antifa rioters were too”scattered “ and” diffuse “ to track down Meanwhile hundreds of police officers and ordinary citizens were killed in these riots. The FBI has failed miserably in regards to stopping the flow of drugs across the Southern “border” but Biden is equally culpable. The Bureau has also failed to prevent the Chinese Communist Party and their American acolytes from stealing scientific and intellectual information. FBI Director Wray seems to feel it’s a losing battle-but shouldn’t let the Chinese in on his own personal feelings. And finally, the big one. Why no investigations into the Biden Family’s pay-to play influence schemes in China, Ukraine and elsewhere. Biden bragged on a video how he got a Ukrainian official fired. Why is he not being investigated/impeached? Does China own him? Is he the ultimate Manchurian Candidate?
This will continue until this administration is gone and the mid and upper management of the FBI removed/and or imprisoned. Nothing against the hardworking field agents.
Do you think we’ll ever see another blockbuster movie extolling the good work of the FBI? Probably not in my lifetime.