# FBI/DOJ agents - completely apolitical? (Peter Strzok) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 7, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825 "2017-12-07T19:58:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/21 "2017-12-08T15:33:39Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I feel like the free press has been doing a pretty good job of discrediting itself. Yes. How dare they report everything Trump says and does. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/22 "2017-12-08T17:51:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I feel like the free press has been doing a pretty good job of discrediting itself. True indeed, but there are also good reporters doing quality work. Relatively speaking, the modern journalistic standards of most of the major networks (with the notable exception of Fox) and the many other outlets ensures that their information is largely credible. They make mistakes and perhaps a greater sin is failure to really give depth and context, but the reporting is more or less factual. Attacking a report, a reporter, or a network would be one thing, but Trump is essentially declaring that, along with the federal bureaucracies, higher education, and any institution he does not like, the entire press has discredited itself, which is not at all true. In doing this, he’s attempting to undermine what is arguably among the most essential components in a democracy, which is the ability of a free people to be informed. Regardless of how uninformed they sometimes choose to be, this is the cornerstone of democracy and it’s breathtakingly shocking to see that the United States, among the first nations on earth to enshrine such a right, now has a sitting president that has about as much regard for this freedom as Duterte or Putin. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/23 "2017-12-09T06:21:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You are correct that it is probably impossible to be completely apolitical. OTOH your article mentions that he changed the description of how Clinton handled her emails from ‘grossly negligent’ to ‘extremely careless’, and that gross negligence is much more a criminal matter than extreme carelessness. I haven’t seen the texts, but it seems fair to me to see if they demonstrate a lack of effort on Strzok’s part to put aside his partisan bias. > > It’s going to be a judgment call, of course. And it’s possible to be a person of integrity as well as a partisan. Wow…I agree with Shodan. I feel I should note this day in my diary (if I had one). Of course FBI agents are human and citizens. They will have their biases same as anyone else. The iffy thing is changing that negligence designation. It is highly suspect in light of his leanings. The thing that worries me here is it just sends the message to all FBI agents to hide their political leanings. In the absence of evidence of his bias would this have gotten any notice? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/24 "2017-12-09T10:18:34Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Strzok was removed from the case when Mueller found out about the texts, long before they became public. > > In fact, AFAICT, the only way these texts became publically known to begin with was as a result of them being the reason Strzok was removed from the case. It looks like there’s been an investigation running since January, headed by Michael Horowitz, that is looking into the question of whether there was any partisan bias at the top levels of the FBI. My assumption would be that Strzok was investigated as part of that and removed because Horowitz decided that the man needed to be sidelined. Mueller probably didn’t have much say in the matter, though I would expect that he would have been quite happy to lose a member that could taint his investigation unnecessarily. The texts are presumably something that came up during the investigation as a side to everything else, and someone in Congress decided to leak it because it was politically advantageous for them to do so. It’s unlikely to be a key component of whatever predicament Strzok is in. The fact that he was sidelined, though, and well before the general public got wind ow it, leads me to believe that he probably did do something that merits strict scrutiny and which may well lead to him being fired. I’m going to have to start following the Horowitz story, as well as the Mueller story. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/25 "2017-12-09T11:19:02Z")
The last public hearing that included Horowitz seems to have been back in July, on the subject of FARA: > **[Justice Department Officials Testify on Foreign Agent Registration Requirements](https://www.c-span.org/video/?431604-1%2Fjustice-department-officials-testify-foreign-agent-registration-requirements)** > > Justice Department officials, including the agency's inspector general, testified at a hearing on foreign agent registration requirements. Inspector General Michael Horowitz detailed a review his office conducted of the Justice Department's... (While it usually annoys me when someone decides to give a speech, rather than ask questions, I’ll admit that I quite like Orrin Hatch’s speech somewhere in the middle.) It sounds like the Republicans are all angry that someone on the Democratic side requested a 2 hour window for the hearing. I would wonder whether it’s because they knew that it would have given the Republicans a chance to ask Horowitz about FARA violations on the Clinton side of things. I’d wonder if one reason for the general lack of coverage is the fact that Horowitz appears to be nearly about the world’s most boring human being: 😃 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/aW7nZNgVq30/maxresdefault.jpg "Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Department of Justice – 2017") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW7nZNgVq30) ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/26 "2017-12-09T11:30:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Republican cops will still arrest Republicans. Democratic prosecutors will still indict Democrats. But yes, the DOJ tends to drift left and the FBI tends to drift right. I believe it’s commonly accepted, conventional wisdom that law enforcement skews right. I’m having a hard time believing that the DOJ under Sessions somehow drifts left. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/27 "2017-12-09T14:03:01Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Very possibly true. > > But the ramifications of that would seem to be that an FBI agent or DOJ official can’t express political views even in private, because of the risk of them becoming public. And this over a non-substantive “appearance of bias” issue. That seems like quite a lot to me. But he’s not just any FBI agent working just any case . . .he’s investigating the Trump administration and before that, Clinton. I can see the argument that when you are assembling a team to investigate a highly political area, you ought to avoid including people that are strongly inclined towards a particular political outcome. The problem, of course, is that damn near anyone with the intellectual breadth to ve part of such a team likely has strong opinions on these interesting times. So the second choice is to find people who have rigid senses of law and propriety as well. Shitty, snippy little texts to his girlfriend do not suggest that this guy is that guy. So I’m fine with reassigning him. It doesn’t sound like he’s thebright person for this job. Doesn’t mean he can’t be an agent. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joe\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Man)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/28 "2017-12-10T01:11:08Z")
And if they say they are, they are lying. But there is a difference between being apolitical and hyper partisan. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/29 "2017-12-11T03:25:56Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Yes. How dare they report everything Trump says and does. This has little to do with Trump. Trump just tapped into something and is not exploiting the public’s well earned mistrust of the media to attack the media and cast anything negative they say about him in doubt. Do you really think we would have gone to war in Iraq if the media wasn’t pounding the war drums? Hell, do you really think Trump would be in the white house if the media didn’t try to make it a horse race? > [@asahi](#): > > True indeed, but there are also good reporters doing quality work. Relatively speaking, the modern journalistic standards of most of the major networks (with the notable exception of Fox) and the many other outlets ensures that their information is largely credible. They make mistakes and perhaps a greater sin is failure to really give depth and context, but the reporting is more or less factual. Attacking a report, a reporter, or a network would be one thing, but Trump is essentially declaring that, along with the federal bureaucracies, higher education, and any institution he does not like, the entire press has discredited itself, which is not at all true. In doing this, he’s attempting to undermine what is arguably among the most essential components in a democracy, which is the ability of a free people to be informed. Regardless of how uninformed they sometimes choose to be, this is the cornerstone of democracy and it’s breathtakingly shocking to see that the United States, among the first nations on earth to enshrine such a right, now has a sitting president that has about as much regard for this freedom as Duterte or Putin. I disagree. I think there is some journalistic integrity left in print media but broadcast news is not longer trying to inform us, it is trying to grab ratings at best and it is trying to influence our opinions through biased reporting at worst. I agree that Trump’s undermining the press is bad for democracy but like I said, they got the ball rolling. The media brought much of this on themselves. I don’t like Trump but there is nothing he has done that is as bad as the Iraq War. We are still dealing with that today. Most of the non-racist stuff that he has done is just stuff any Republican president would do and half the racists stuff he has done is ALSO stuff that any Republician president might have done. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825/30 "2017-12-11T13:53:51Z")
> [@Joe\_Man](#): > > And if they say they are, they are lying. But there is a difference between being apolitical and hyper partisan. A rather large one, I dare say. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fbi-doj-agents-completely-apolitical-peter-strzok/803825.md?page=1)