So what is your opinion about what the President publically says about the FBI?
I know you didn’t ask me, but I’ll answer:
It has undermined my confidence in the President’s ability to complete his duties objectively.
nm
So what are you complaining about, then? There’s no evidence the FBI’s investigation is not objective and fact oriented. When they found an agent’s personal political opinions were revealed publicly, they removed that agent from the investigation, as they should have. And the honorable and fact oriented investigation continues, most recently indicting several Russian agents who were in communication with Trump allies while hacking into the DNC.
I will say one thing: based on yesterday’s hearing, if I were to compare the integrity of Peter Strzok with Trey Gowdy, I feel much better with Strzok being in the FBI than Gowdy being an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
Anyone here proud of Gowdy’s performance yesterday?
Actually, you should be encouraging more federal law enforcement to leave a digital paper trail of their inner thoughts. He gave Trey Gowdy and other GOP ghost whisperers something to use in their attempts to discredit the investigation.
It’s actually pretty frightening to know that there might be a federal prosecutor as blatantly dishonest and corrupt as Gowdy.
I wouldn’t say that Strzok’s private texts aren’t problematic. They do show potential bias, which is a reason that Robert Mueller removed him from the investigation once the texts were discovered. A person can have their own private thoughts, but if those thoughts reveal potential bias, then that has to be addressed - and it was.
The problem with Republican logic is that they want to suggest that a few texts discredit the entire investigation, which it absolutely does not. Nor does Strzok’s personal conduct, as inappropriate as it was, necessarily disqualify him from continued public service within the Bureau.
Well, I disagree. I do have a problem with it, and having an avowed white supremacist in a police agency is not remotely like what we’re talking about with Peter Strzok. In the case of the latter, it’s a matter of possible bias toward one individual. But a racist officer carries that bias into every interaction he has with members of the public. You can’t compartmentalize the two, and it’s naive to suggest otherwise.
I’m not a fan of thought policing. Everyone has biases, it’s the nature of being human. It’s unfortunate, but true. I don’t care for punishing others for their opinions because you never know when your opinions are the next on the chopping block. It’s easy to say that a Klansman shouldn’t be a cop, but I could see that easily morphing into an NAACP member or an Orthodox Jew or any number of minority opinions (Not attempting to conflate the NAACP with the Klan, but I can see the same logic being abused against them.) If you can statistically or anecdotally prove bias, then the guy needs to go. If you can’t, then simply having the opinion should not be grounds for dismissal.
The motto of the SS was “My honor is loyalty.” The point was that they conflated honor with obedience, no matter what. It didn’t matter what they personally thought. As long as they were obedient, they were morally right.
So you tell me, OP… How long do you think it would take before someone is told to do something unethical or immoral, but they have to keep their mouths shut because they “aren’t allowed to make political statements?”
I’m a government employee and I decided a long time ago that i would rather have my integrity. I refuse to be silent in the face of evil.
Yes, but not everyone is an avowed white supremacist. Do you not understand the difference in degree?
I don’t know if “conflate” is the right word. Maybe more like “false equivalency.”
Not so certain that a couple of agents playing footsie with their agency issued phones constitutes a problem with the FBI as a whole. Every organization has a share of irresponsible employees
I am certain that the agency has policies against prejudicing an investigation by any kind of unauthorized statement so a law prohibiting such statements by individual agents seems redundant and counter productive
One reason these whole thing is ridiculous is that most of the Republican leadership said far worse things about Trump up until the point that his nomination became inevitable.
There should be laws for everything, until there is no more war, but peace.
It’s legitimate to be a member of a legitimate group. Yes, in fact you are attempting to conflate the NAACP with the Klan. Klan membership by itself really is proof of bias.
The problem is that you’re defining legitimate and your particular opinion on what is or isn’t legitimate is not guaranteed to be popular opinion in the future. If you concede that speech suppression among public servants is a valid exercise of state authority, it makes it much more difficult to fight against it when the state decides it’s a “legitimate” group that needs to be silenced.
You had some?
BTW, can somebody provide me with a pronunciation guide on “Strzok?”
It’s pronounced “Throatwarbler Mangrove”
Don’t blame me, you asked for it.