Is Our System of Policing Under Attack?

Kash Patel, current nominee to head up the FBI.

I reluctantly write this — yet I feel I must. Is policing as we know it in America under attack? If any one of the threats the current political leadership of our country is making against the FBI occurs, we all are in trouble.

I see the political strategy of “disruption” and how it works. I cannot support these threats at the national level because it will soon impact city police and sheriff’s departments. When mistakes are made, we have a legal process that can improve any bad practices of our police. It can end up by the federal justice department suing a city for civil rights violations and imposing a consent decree to improve bad practices. Most recently this happened in Minneapolis. where I once walked a beat and investigated crime.

Let’s face it. What is happening in Washington with our system of justice is not normal. Sure, it might be simply political bravado, but if it isn’t, if these threats are carried out, our system of policing in this country is most surely under attack and must be confronted and stopped. We must stand up to it.

The current statements of Kash Patel, the President’s nominee to lead our Federal Bureau of Investigation, is puzzling if not frightening if we believe his past statements. And we must remember, the term of office for the Director of the FBI is ten years in length and not concurrent with who occupies the White House.

Here’s a run-down from a recent NPR article about Patel. It’s worth a read. Thankfully, Patel seems to distance himself from the Presdient’s wholesale pardon of the January 6 rioters. Patel’s law enforcement training and experience is minimal and his statement about closing down the Hoover Building and sending all agents out to “fight crime” is both unnerving and ignorant. His attraction to conspiracy theories is troubling. Simply stated, I think our nation can do much better in selecting the Director of the FBI.

The following are excerpts from The Atlantic Magazine on Patel’s nomination.

FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge

Seasoned members of the nation’s top law-enforcement agency are bracing for a mass expulsion as the president roots out anyone he sees as disloyal to him.

By Shane Harris, January 31, 2025

“This afternoon, FBI personnel braced for a retaliatory purge of the nation’s premiere law-enforcement agency, as President Donald Trump appeared ready to fire potentially hundreds of agents and officials who’d participated in investigations that led to criminal charges against him…

“David Sundberg, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, is also being fired, these people added. Sundberg is a career FBI agent with more than two decades of experience, and he oversees some of the bureau’s most sensitive cases related to national security and counterintelligence…

“Trump’s retribution is not limited to those who investigated him personally. Administration officials are reviewing records to identify FBI personnel who participated in investigations of the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters, people familiar with the matter told me… Shortly after taking office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of the rioters and commuted others’ sentences.

“There is no precedent for the mass termination of FBI personnel in this fashion… But [agents] were stunned by the scale of Trump’s anticipated purge, which is taking aim at senior leaders as well as working-level agents who do not set policy but follow the orders of their superiors…”

“Trump’s efforts to root out his supposed enemies might not withstand a legal challenge. FBI agents do not choose the cases assigned to them, and they are protected by civil-service rules. The FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit organization that is not part of the U.S. government, said in a statement that the reports of Trump’s planned purge are ‘outrageous…’

“The mass firings could imperil the nomination of Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to run the FBI in his administration. Just yesterday, Patel had assured senators during his confirmation hearing that the very kinds of politically motivated firings that appear to be in motion would not happen.

“‘All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,’ Patel told lawmakers. ‘Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments’…”

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The problem here is one of veracity. Will the President force the issue and purge many agents? Will Patel, if confirmed, then say “I am against this, but I had to follow the President’s orders?” Who do we believe, Patel or his boss? Is this fact or fiction?

As former Marine, I remember a poster from World War II about the power of words, “Loose lips, sink ships.” It reminded soldiers and sailors that what you say have impact on others. When it comes to our system of justice, and our elected officials believe correction or improvements are needed in our system, there is an established and Constitutional way to do it. This is not the way.

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The author of this article is Shane Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic. He has written about intelligence, security, and foreign policy for more than two decades, including as a staff writer for The Washington Post, where he was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer contributed reporting to this article.

You can read the full article HERE.