from the rubes-and-marks-welcome! dept
Trump’s desire to punish, oust, and eject anyone who isn’t white and/or MAGA enough from this country means the preferred outlets for his aggression are running out of manpower.
Tons of federal officers have already been rerouted to immigration enforcement, leaving those left with the unenviable task of actually catching the kinds of criminals Trump claims to be concerned about understaffed and underfunded.
Meanwhile, ICE just can’t catch people fast enough, whether or not they’re dangerous criminals. (90% of the time, they aren’t.) This administration considers 3,000 arrests per day to be the minimum entry requirement to the Greatness that is the Making America Great Again psychosis.
To that end, the DHS has altered its age requirements, expanding the upper and lower levels of the age brackets. To be sure, the DHS isn’t interested in (nor is it going to attract) anyone in the 18-20 year age range. This move is aimed entirely at targeting those most likely to find this invitation attractive: aging bigots who have been forcibly retired by their former law enforcement employers, especially if they’ve been sent out to pasture for being old-school racist in a new-school world.
The masked marauders that make up most of ICE aren’t there for the glory. Maybe they’re just there for the paycheck. Whatever the case, there’s not enough of them. The get-off-my-lawn crowd can now be paid handsomely for converting their prejudices to action.
This federal law enforcement cannibalization also affects the FBI, which has plenty of its own work to do as the official extension of Trump’s political and personal animus. Understandably, the FBI is struggling to maintain staff levels now that it’s clear it’s either do the dirty work of aspiring fascists or get the fuck out. A lot of people have left. Those that remain are steadily finding themselves riding around in cars with ICE officers or wandering around the streets of Washington D.C. looking for some laws to enforce.
Those who haven’t been brainwormed by MAGA aren’t happy with the new status quo, as this New York Times report notes. It’s easier than ever to get into the FBI — a Trumpian move that isn’t exactly endearing itself with the rank-and-file:
Under a plan pushed by the director, Kash Patel, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, the F.B.I. will start welcoming new classes of recruits who will receive less training and no longer be required to have a college degree, according to people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.
The shift comes as the agency anticipates losing more than 5,000 employees by September, largely as a result of agents, analysts and others taking severance or early retirement packages offered by the Trump administration to try to reduce the budget.
I think the NYT is being far too kind in its assessment of the situation. I don’t doubt thousands of FBI employees are planning to leave. But it’s not about budget cuts. It’s about no longer desiring to work for these pricks. And by pricks, I mean everyone from Kash Patel to Dan Bongino to Pam Bondi to the president himself.
When you’re leaking talent, you might be inclined to patch the leaks with whatever warm bodies you might find willing to be utilized as hole filler. But the FBI can’t reverse a brain drain by prioritizing quantity over quality. Of course, this administration — including the people currently running the FBI (into the ground) — isn’t competent enough to mitigate the consequences of its destructive actions, which means that the FBI is going to continue to bleed talent that will never be replaced during this administration.
Chris O’Leary, a former F.B.I. agent and senior counterterrorism official, called the plan the latest example of “generational destruction” at the agency.
If the bureau’s leaders “knew anything about leading organizations,” he said, “they would know that when you lower the standards, your mission effectiveness goes down with that, because not only does the capability of each individual agent decline, but your reputation, both domestically and globally, takes a hit.”
It’s quite obvious the current “leadership” doesn’t know a goddamn thing about “leading.” That much cannot be argued. Even the “leadership” is unwilling to argue this point, claiming the lowering of standards aligns with its dumbing down of the FBI, which is the kind of self-own we’ve come to expect from this administration.
The new plan, current and former agents say, seems to be part of a larger effort by Mr. Patel to have the bureau focus more on street crime, rather than on complicated cases touching on financial fraud, public corruption and national security.
So, we’re hiring feds to do the work of beat cops because that’s all the FBI can get at this point and that’s all Patel can hope to do given the number of self-inflicted wounds sustained by this administration.
Welcome aboard, G-men! Sharpen those pencils and grab those pads! You’ll be doing the federal equivalent of meter reading in no time, which will, fortunately, probably not expose your utter lack of investigative expertise!
If there’s any justice in this nation (is there? I’m asking seriously), courts are going to start rejecting every proclamation of “experience and expertise” in criminal complaints and warrants as literally unbelievable. And I wouldn’t put this stint in law enforcement on your resume. It’s hardly an achievement to collect a paycheck periodically from an employer headed by people even less qualified to do your job than you are.
Filed Under: atf, doj, fbi, ice, kash patel, trump administration
