I’ve been thinking about this and struggling to see how we can keep the part of the FBI that does law enforcement, and abolish the part of the FBI that is being paid taxpayer money to undermine our elections. So I was excited to find an article by someone who likes law enforcement and counter-terrorism who nevertheless thinks that the FBI should be dismantled. And he explains how.

This article from American Greatness is by Kyle Shideler, and it’s a must-read.

First, here is his goal:

The solution to the abuses we now endure is not just to subject the FBI to another fruitless inspector general investigation but to dismantle it completely. The bureau cannot be the focus of yet another congressional hearing. FBI Director Christopher Wray, like his predecessors, is more than happy to sit smirking while a handful of grandstanding congressmen and senators pound the table and yell on C-SPAN. Then he’ll jet off for a holiday vacation on a taxpayer-funded private jet while the same congressmen vote to increase his budget. Again.

I’m not sure if you heard about this, but the FBI Director left a congressional hearing early in order to use a taxpayer-funded jet to fly him to his vacation. That’s the respect that the FBI has for taxpayers who pay their salaries.

What I liked about this article is this summary of what the FBI has done that is so objectionable. A lot of people who just read David French and Russell Moore are too focused on virtue signaling to remember the history of the FBI’s abuses. They just watch CNN, and believe whatever will make them look virtuous to the people on CNN. They can’t remember all the times that the FBI has done bad work, because they aren’t informed.

Here’s what the FBI has been doing:

The FBI’s actions over the past six years make perfectly clear that the FBI is more than willing to serve as the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. It serves as its patron’s shield in matters large and small. It exonerated Hillary Clinton for her illicit server. It raided James O’Keefe and Project Veritas when Joe Biden’s daughter lost her diary. It eliminated investigation into Black Lives Matter and other black identity extremists because those pursuits annoyed the Democrats’ Congressional Black Caucus. It refuses even to utter the word “Antifa” while churches and pregnancy centers are fire-bombed. It continues to cover up for Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings with enemy nations, along with his indulgence in criminal prostitution and drug abuse.

But the FBI has also served as the Democrats’ sword as well. It knowingly laundered the Russian collusion hoax, lying in order to secure FISA warrants. It ambushed the president’s sitting national security advisor in a nonsense perjury trap. The FBI hunts down January 6 protesters while dodging congressional inquiries about the role of federal agents in provoking the incident. The FBI ginned up a fake kidnapping plot in Michigan to instill fear of right-wing terrorism, manhandled the former president’s lawyer, and shackled one of his former high-level aides.

And it has now raided the former president’s home under a mere pretext, while the Democrats openly crow on cable news about using a political prosecution to prevent Trump from ever again being able to serve in office.

Other attempts to rein in the FBI short of its abolition have failed. The FBI shows nothing but contempt for those authorized to oversee it. It routinely ignores inspector general investigations. It fails to prosecute or punish those who overtly violate established policies. It refuses to answer legitimate questions from Republican committee members. It doesn’t even respond to congressional letters of inquiry. It punishes FBI whistleblowers and seeks to purge from its midst those agents who aren’t in lockstep with its new praetorian guard role.

That’s a very useful summary for people who have a casual interest in politics and may not be following all of the details.

The FBI is clearly out of control, and they need to be broken up. These are not honest people. They lack integrity. We shouldn’t be paying them out of our taxes to fail at their jobs. We can find other people to do whatever tasks they do that are valuable.

Here’s the plan to break the FBI up:

Begin by separating out the FBI’s component parts. The FBI’s crime lab, statistical services, and National Crime Information Center service could be pulled out and left as independent agencies with the sole job of supporting other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies with their scientific and data capabilities.

Parcel out the FBI’s criminal justice division and its tasks to the various state-level bureaus of investigation. Provide direct federal funding to compensate for the extra workload. Let them primarily make state-level cases, in state court, for the crimes committed within the physical boundaries of their states. It’s not as though kidnapping, bank robbery, drug dealing, or racketeering went unpunished before the FBI came along. White collar, financial, and cybercrimes can be handled by the U.S. Secret Service. Federal crimes whose perpetrators directly cross state lines can be given to the U.S. Marshals Service to track down. Unlike the FBI, the U.S. Marshals are largely scandal-free, and have a long history of cooperating successfully with state and local law enforcement.

For the disgraced national security division, divide up the FBI’s counterterrorism portfolio among the remaining federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies with a role to play, and the various state and regional JTTFs.

I like law enforcement. I like national security. I like the work that FBI has done to fight crime and terrorism in the past. But if they are so compromised that they can’t do the work in the present, then we need to break up. The next Republican administration and president needs to do that.