Defund The FBI!

No, that headline’s not a joke. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, once so popular it had its own TV show solely dedicated to its heroics, has become a hyper-politicized, jackbooted bully that no longer serves the American people or the U.S. Constitution, which its employees are sworn to protect. It has become, instead, the intelligence arm and domestic enforcer of the far left.

Did we say defund? Yes. But we don’t mean simply to cut its funding, as leftists have disastrously proposed for police forces across the country. We mean tear down the entire rotting edifice of the FBI and replacing it with a new agency that respects the Constitution and holds itself accountable to all Americans, not just the woke far left.

The raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound may be the breaking point, but it’s only the latest FBI outrage. In recent years, under Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Bureau has acted overtly to aid one political party over the other, demonizing those who oppose the Democrats’ “woke,” “progressive” agenda for America.

To be sure, this has been going on for some time now, starting with the FBI’s feeble investigation of Hillary Clinton’s home-based server, which intelligence sources say was almost certainly hacked by the Russians, the Chinese, or both. It was a clear violation of the law, exposing America’s secrets to our worst enemies.

And the FBI did nothing.

The FBI was also improperly involved in the 2016 presidential election, allowing itself to be used by the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat law firm Perkins Coie to launch a spying operation against Trump and his campaign.

The FBI initially denied any impropriety, naturally, but in fact sat up a “secure work environment” at Perkins Coie offices to coordinate its investigation with its Democrat allies.

At one point, in April 2016, FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok brazenly told colleague (and lover) Lisa Page, “we’ll stop” Trump’s election. He subsequently launched “Crossfire Hurricane,” the investigation intended to sink Trump’s presidential hopes. Strzok called it the FBI’s “insurance policy.“

Of course, the whole “Russian collusion” theory spread by Clinton, her supporters and the FBI has proved to be a hoax. And the “dossier” upon which it was based turned out to be filled with lies and distortions.

The FBI’s flagrant and inexcusable behavior continued in 2017, after the attempted assassination of Republican congressional members by disgruntled Democratic activist and aging “Bernie Bro” James T. Hodgkinson.

The FBI downplayed the shooting, which nearly killed GOP Rep. Steve Scalise and wounded three others, suggesting it was just a failed “suicide by cop” attempt by a mentally imbalanced man. Only later did the FBI admit that Hodgkinson was, in fact, a terrorist bent on killing GOP politicians.

But the FBI didn’t learn its lesson.

During the 2020 election, as Bureau whistleblowers recently told Sen. Chuck Grassley, the FBI actively sought to quash the investigation into Hunter Biden’s lost laptop and his (and Joe “Big Guy” Biden’s) many questionable business deals during the election.

Why? To elect Joe Biden as president.

Meanwhile, the FBI looked the other way in 2020 as BLM and Antifa rioted during that long, hot summer in city after city, leading to an estimated 30 deaths and more than $2 billion in damage.

Terrorists? Nah, said the FBI, taking a knee.

But then came Jan. 6, the supposed “insurrection” that was really little more than a day-long temper tantrum thrown by assorted groups and individuals angry over voting irregularities that they believed cost Trump the 2020 election.

They caused little property damage and killed no one. Yet dozens have been jailed for months, and some already sentenced to years in prison after Garland’s Justice Department charged more than 120 with crimes.

Both the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police knew that some might commit violent acts. How? Despite denials, the FBI almost certainly had infiltrated all the groups involved.

Yet, during his February 2021 Senate confirmation hearings, Garland likened those who participated in the Jan. 6 riots and demonstrations to the KKK, and suggested the bogus “insurrection” was worse than the Oklahoma City bombings, which killed 168 people.

“From false accounts about the death of a Capitol Police officer and tales of an ‘armed insurrection’ to the fortification of Washington, D.C., political protest is being criminalized in a way that sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the future,” wrote Julie Kelly of American Greatness in March 2021.

That mindset is perfectly reflected in President Biden’s 2021 declaration that “terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today.” That’s the template the FBI is now following.

We won’t get into the details of the FBI’s Trump raid. Many others have already done that.

But suffice it to say, the FBI “raid” was really just political theater meant to scare those of us who don’t agree with the Democrats’ attempts to destroy our republic. It’s the kind of thing that used to happen in the now-defunct USSR, and that still happens in China, North Korea, Venezuela and other hard-core socialist countries.

The message is out. If you disagree with this administration or its pervasive Deep State adherents, you’re the target. There’s no longer room for dissent.

We don’t blame just the FBI. The FBI should play a vital role in protecting our rights. But its actions recently have been so egregious, so blatant, that its many transgressions can no longer be ignored or tolerated. Its repeated violations of the spirit and letter of the Constitution’s guarantees of our rights are unacceptable.

Or, as historian Victor Davis Hansen recently noted, “The FBI is beyond redemption.”

We agree. So do many others, as polls show. Defund the FBI? At the very least, the next Congress must investigate its serious political misconduct, and hold those responsible accountable for its repeated misdeeds. And it’s clear we need to create an entirely new, de-politicized agency built from the ground up. This time, however, let’s make sure it truly respects America’s Constitution, the only real guarantor of our freedom.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board, find more of their editorials here.