The Fall of the FBI

0:12 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FORCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, program services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W for c Y Radio or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY Radio. Well, good afternoon, Bill Martin is here. Great to have you with us, sharing a part of your day. We're going to be talking about the fall of the FBI. You know, think about it. How has this once great agency become such a threat to our democracy?

1:06 You know, during the past few years, FBI insider Thomas Baker became concerned with the abuses being reported about the FBI. He notes the abuse was caused by a change in culture and poor leadership. In his new book, The Fall of the FBI, he attempts to answer the questions that we're asking. First, you know, what went wrong with the FBI. This book tells of the adventure injustices and ultimate dysfunction of the agency, including possible solutions. Tom Baker joins us. Now, Tom, welcome the show. Good to have you with us, Wait to be with you. Bill Well. Here you are as an FBI insider and you're seeing what's happening to something that you were once proud of. Tell our viewers a bit of your background and how we got to where we are today, Bill Well. I was in the FBI for thirty three years, and since my retirement from the FBI have stayed engaged with the Department of Justice and the FBI through a variety of my activities, and I have seen these changes. I wrote a number of op eds when I became quite concerned, first to my attention in the Russian collusion investigation, and I've come to the conclusion that the basic problem is the change in culture that was begun by Bob Muller, Bob Mueller of Special Counsel fame when he became FBI Director, and that was continued and exacerbated by the poor

2:38 leadership of James Comy. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's that was the root of it. But even for Muller to have such an impact, there had to be a predicate before that, Tom, I mean what started to loosen things up to where Muller believed that what he was doing was justin wright on behalf of the of the country. Was it just elitism that crept into the institution that worked his understanding and compromised his mission. Well, there was a pivotal moment, a key moment which I explained in the book. And Mueller, what you might recall, became the FBI director just two or three days before the September eleventh attacks, which happened on Tuesday. On the following Saturday, President George W. Bush summoned Muller to the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, and at that time, at that meeting, Muller asked Muller was asked by George W. Bush to give a report of the FBI investigation. He did that, and in that essentially three and a half days from the Tuesday attack to that Saturday morning at Camp David, the FBI had done what it does best investigate, and in that short time they'd identified all nineteen hijackers, their associations, they're financing all their connections that passed travel going

4:14 back to al Qaidam. And when he was done presenting it, the report, and Mola told us this, he expected some praise or thanks, and instead of President George W. Bush just looked at him and said, I don't care about that. I just want to know how you're going to prevent the next one. Wow. Mola left that meeting humiliated, and he said he became found and determined to change the culture of the FBI. And that's the word he used, from a law enforcement mindset to that of an intelligence agency. And that had a lot of unintended consequences and ultimately bad consequences. Well, didn't that cross the barrier between the FBI and the CIA at that point? Well, it changed the mind set inside the FBI. It changed the way of looking and thinking at things. And there is a fundamental difference in a law enforcement agency. You exist every day, consciously or unconsciously for that when the time comes when you're going to have to stand up in court before a judge, before a jury, before a magistrate, and raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God to a set of facts. Now, in intelligence agencies, don't they don't deal in that. They first of all, they operate by deceit and deception, and their ultimate product is an estimate some would call it a best guess. And guests are not allowed in

5:46 the courtroom. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I think it's quite interesting because at that time, of course, the nation then became over night very sensitive to the Muslim religion, and we had Muslims in our government, and all this was kind of really kept you know, in you know, behind closed doors, so to speak. We found out about it subsequently. And that wasn't to say that, uh like in World War Two, where we looked at anybody that was Japanese needed to be uh, you know, segregated and put in concentration camps. But you know, I think if you're looking at not you know, really analyzing what's going on, and you realize of these nineteen terrorists, they had some things that were in common that were consistent with the Muslim faith. Isn't that true? No doubt about it.

6:41 They were on jihad. They were on this this this mission jihad. So if if Muller is supposed to analyze and do what he can in order to keep this from happening again, then you have to have a really deep down objective assessment of what you're dealing with, and how do you do that when there's interference built in, interference by other other operatives and high level operatives. You might say that we're in the government that we're going to forbid him, you know from really you know, finding out and getting the whole truth and nothing. But is that fair to say? Tom ye to some extent, Bill And in what he did, he did change a lot of operational things in the bureau, which which then poisonous fruit later on, the investigation of September eleventh, which the FBI code named pent bomb, was the first investigation run out of FBI headquarters. Traditionally in the FBI, investigations are run out of a field office, and you have a field agent runs the investigation as the case agent. He's closely supervised by his field supervisor and over and above them as the special agent in charge of that field office. Only later does review coming involved from FBI headquarters in Washington. What Muller insisted on doing,

8:13 and there was a lot of pushback. A lot of the FBI executives at that time told him it was not the way to do things. But nonetheless he persisted, so independent layers of review and judgment were eliminated and everything was held back in headquarters. That was pent bomb. That continued. James Comey did that again with the investigation of the Hillary Clinton email and then the Russian collusion investigation with FBI code name cross Via Hurricane exactly, so you eliminated all this review and independent judgment from field agents, and what you had the situation, For example, in cross Via Hurricane, you had Struck, Peter Struck, who was a deputy assistant director, making the decision to open the case, drafting the communication that opened the case, signing it and approving it, and then he himself traveling the next day Monday morning, to London, England to conduct the first interview in that investigation. No oversight, no independent judgment, It was bound to end poorly, right well, and especially when you start with somebody who had a fixed end to begin with, right I mean, it was clear based on testimony that he had no affinity and positive consideration for Juan Donald Trump. Donald Trump being elected president really tore his guts from the inside out. He had such an animus toward the president, so

9:46 you know, his filter was already well established and there was a clear loss of objectivity. Is that fair to say? That is exactly correct. I explained that in some detail in the book, and now only a month ago, John Durham's Special Counsel and his report on the origins of the investigation said, confirmed, validated that there was no probable cause, no predicate information, no justification for opening that investigation whatsoever. Is absolutely shocking. And what's also shocking and disappointing is that the Durham report has not gotten the attention, widespread attention that it deserves because it shows there was just no reason to open that investigation whatsoever. Yeah, we're talking to Tom Baker, his new book, The Fall of the FBI. Tom, you know, in that situation, the Russian collusion, all the money that was spent, the people's money, I don't know upwards seventy million dollars that we spent for this investigation came up with nothing found out. It was all a lie, started with a dossier that even the FBI had determined early on was inadequate, It lacked credibility.

11:09 But again because of the determined nature of Struck and others within the FBI, they really lost track of their mission and just become you know, became untethered, uh and just emotionally ran with this, I mean, in breaking the law, in presenting to the courts false false testimony in order to get you know, a FISA. I mean, this is just it's no wonder right now that Congress is looking to clip the wings of the FBI and their use of this documentation or a FISA tool. Well, Bill, you mentioned the tremendous expense. But and that's accurate, but far far more important and far more greed vis I think, is the threat to our liberty, to the liberty of Americans, to our constitutional rights. Donald Trump, like him, love him or hate him, his rights were violated, but so are the rights of dozens of other Americans. In that initial investigation car to page you mentioned, Fiser was subject to a PHIZA warrant we now know based on no justification. The justification that was used that was presented to the fies A court was that Steele Dosier, which now we know and has been confirmed again in the Durham Report was virtually a total fabrication that was relied on and an American

12:45 citizen was spied on for over for a year with four different separate phiser warrants. This fellow car to Page no matter what you think of him, no matter what you think of any other American, No Americans should be subject to that. It's our country military. He needed to be respected, I mean, for his service to the country, and this is what they did because unfortunately, I mean, forget about his service to the country, he was just on the wrong side. You know, if it was a Democrat, you know, it had been fine. But he was a Republican. So whether it was you know, Carter Page or Papadopoulos, you know what they did to General Flynn as well. I mean, And the thing is the other consequences, how the dominoes fell, and the impact it had on the body politic Tom. I mean, even to this day, after all, I mean, you and I are talking the truth, We've got the evidence, and we're laying this out, there's still too many Americans that want to believe that there was some veracity to this whole thing. Well that's the shame.

13:50 And and that's a phenomenon that happens in human behavior and human relations. A story gets out there, what turns out to be a full story. It gets out there, it gets spread, it gets repeated, and then for many many people, it's the accepted truth. When we now know when you look closely at it, there was there was no deliberate, conscious collusion between Trump or his campaign with the Russians. In fact, we now know, if when anyone cares to look at it, that the Russians some of their operations on social media were designed to discredit Hillary Clinton because they believed, as did all US pundits at that time, that Hillary Clinton was the presumptive winner, we would be the next president, and they just wanted to besmirche hard the incoming US president. Well, there was no doubt that they didn't like her, I mean, especially when she guns to them with a reset button. Remember that stables reset button. We're going to do the reset button and spelling and everything. And they saw Hillary Clinton for who she was.

15:03 I mean, they all know crooks, no crooks. They know that she was taking money, she had a side hustle going on, all under the guise of the Clinton Foundation. They knew about Biden and they already had measured him because he had been compromised, so they you know, they weren't fool in anybody and you know, in some regards, I got to say this, Tom, I was surprised that the Russians would be antithical to Hillary because they pretty much owned her. You know, It's like, if anything, I would have thought, just based on the history and circumstances, they would have supported a Hillary Clinton presidency because of how they toyed with her when she was a Secretary of State under Barack Obama. Well, they wanted and determined papadophilis used. They wanted the dirt out there on her. And because they build, they were absolutely convinced. And you go back and read not you, but anybody goes back and reads the papers, the journals. At that time, everybody thought that she would win. Trump was surprised when he won.

16:11 So they just wanted to weaken and discredit the incoming US president. And significantly something else that's overlooked. Special Counts of Mullah did indict two different groups of Russians, one individual Russian and in a separate indictment, a group of Russians Russian trolls as they call them. But in both those indictments there were no Americans mentioned. There was no connection to any Americans, there was no collusion, no collaboration, no conspiracy with any Americans. This was an effort on the part of the Russians to discredit the incoming US president. Trump had nothing to do with it. We now know exactly. Well, and let's go back, you know again, we're talking about this campaign that was going on with Hillary, and then right before election, James Comey comes out with this list of offenses and you're thinking, oh my god, they're going to indict her, you know, and then he wraps it up after laying the evidence and says, no reasonable prosecutor would pursue this case. It wasn't his role, it wasn't his job. He usurped the role of the United States Attorney General or a US attorney in doing that. He was totally out of water, and it was totally unnecessary for him to do that. I think his ego got way ahead of him, his holier than thou attitude got way

17:41 ahead of him. He was, arguably, and I have a chapter in the book about this, the worst director of the FBI ever had. Yeah, it's amazing to me because here he is, I mean, he had animus towards Donald Trump and to do this, I mean, I guess his ego trumped, if I might say, no, pun intended or maybe pun intended, regardless, his ego got ahead of himself to lay this out and really, you know, do some injury to this candidate. I mean, it's almost like what the Hunter Biden laptop could have done to Joe Biden.

18:23 James Comy single handedly did in kneecapping Hillary Clinton with this presentation, right well, and what Comy did, I mean, what the heck was he thinking? He tried, He actually tried with Trump to incriminate the president of the United States and at one point the new incoming president of the United States. It was so out of order. And in his own book he abscribes the beginnings of the investigation in one paragraph to the same stuff, to the same one conversation that Papadopulos had in London that Durham's report goes into and just says, you know, that's not enough, but yet call me cites that again.

19:10 He makes no apology for the damages he's done to our country and to the FBI. Wow, we're talking about it once, great agency, the FBI. His new book from Tom from Tom Baker, The Fall of the FBI, Tom, you know this is so disheartening because we who believe in the exceptionalism and the greatness of America we deserve better than this. We certainly do. We certainly do. So the takeaway that we have during this this horrendous chapter that we're still in the process of trying to get through, Tom, how how are we going to get on the other side of all this madness and U you know, this poisoning of the political marketplace that has been done by this elite class. Well as regards the FBI, the culture has to be restored and I won't even say change, but restored. The FBI, although almost from its beginning, had somewhat of a counterintelligence mission that was thrust upon him by various presidents, was basically the federal law enforcement agency, the investigative arm of the Department of Justice. So, as I explained before, the mindset developed that we are a law enforcement agency and as such, we studied the Constitution, we abided by the guidelines of the Constitution. Now

20:44 with the attitude that the culture has been changed to where it's an intelligence or the term Muller and Comy started and unfortunately Chris Ray is still used an intelligence driven organization. You have intelligence analysts coming to the who are not trained like special agents to operate within the god rails of the Constitution. So they come up with all these almost crackpot ideas, like the most recent one that's come to light trying to investigate Catholics who might prefer to worship using the Latin language. It's it's so insert, it's funny if it wasn't such a threat to our First Amendment liberties of freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech.

21:27 Yeah, I didn't realize. It takes me back to my altar boy days and I didn't realize I was violating, you know, the Constitution because we were praying in Latin, Lord have mercy God. It is so absurd. But while we're at so the culture of the FBI has to be changed. And unfortunately, sometimes when you see Chris Ray testify before Congress and different issues up brought up, and we could go through a whole laundry list of them, he always points out that the bad apples are no longer with us, you know. Struck McCabe call me the the malefactors of the Russian collusion fiasco. They're dismissed, and two agents who were at fault in the in the investigation of the gymnasts. They're no longer with us. At least two agents who were involved almost as agent provocateurs in the governor whitment investigation. They've been shown the door, so on and so forth. But he never gets to the point acknowledging that it's a cultural problem. It's not just a few bad apples. So the FBI and the dj have to reform themselves. But there are other things that Congress can do too as well. John. Before we get to that, though, let's let's stay with Christopher Ray for a moment, because this is a communications issue. He needs to be proactive and saying, look it, this is the problem. He doesn't even he doesn't need to wait because when he waits to come to you know, to come to

23:00 the hill and answer, it's too late. He needs to speak to the American people. If he's the one to do it. I'm not convinced that he is. I believe that in what you're suggesting is that you know, there needs to be a change in leadership, somebody that is clear headed and understands what the mission needs to be and that can come back and tell the people, Okay, this is what happened, this is the current condition of the FBI, and this is how we're going to rectify and change these things, and to be accountable to his plan and purpose and to be able to give us an update so that we can again have confidence, because without that, I don't think anybody believes Christopher Ray. Well, Bill, you're absolutely right. And two weeks ago now, he testified before the House Judiciary Committee, and it was a missed opportunity. He led off and said, Hey, we know we have a problem and we're going to fix it and we're doing this and that or that we did or that we did fix it, instead of in the middle of the hearings going oh, yeah, we already took care of that. Oh well that's news to us. Yeah, it was a missed opportunity. And then instead of being forthright and admitting the errors, he tried to defend. He almost tried to deny the censorship that has been going on, which is another very questionable in light of the first Amendment,

24:33 that we're in collaboration with Twitter, which was documented a Twitter files. He I mean, it was just it was just a missed opportunity. And of course the Judiciary Committee has a very hard time. Jim Jordan's trying to do the right thing there, but they don't have the Democrats on board yet. And for any real reform to come, it has to be bipartisan. That it shouldn't be bipartisan because these threats to our liberty threatened people on the left as well as the right. Yeah, without a doubt, it's equel opportunity. We're talking with Tom Baker, who is over thirty three years of investigative management experience as an FBI special Agent. He has experienced with police management training issues, having served as a management instructor at the FBI Academy. His new book, The Fall of the FBI, How a once great agency became a threat tempt democracy. Tommy, you were talking about the intrusion of the FBI and involvement in the last election twenty twenty. It's no doubt that sixty two percent of America, although you know, you can't talk about it because anytime you bring it up, you know people you know, squash you down, they shut you down, they d platform you, they say you're a conspiratist. But you know, sixty two percent of the country says they don't know exactly what happened. They just don't believe the results of the twenty twenty election. We've spent all kinds of money and manpower to investigate January sixth,

26:07 but nobody's interested in the predicate that ignited January sixth, which was the election. Well, you're exactly right, and there's still a lot of questions around January sixth. There's questions on what's going on now. The lack of attention, apparent lack of attention. Well, they've even destroyed evidence tom now too. Right, that's the lay that's the House of Representatives. They're trying to get at that. All of a suddenly, the so called the January sixth Committee of the House had this blue team looking at security around the Capitol and ultimately the role of the Capitol Police and the Washington Metropolitan Police and other agencies there. And they can't seem to find those documents. So that'll have to be pursued as well. They don't make it easy. I mean, it's like we're trying to chase down bank accounts from overseas into the Biden family.

27:00 I mean, it is one web of network of deception after another. And uh, you know, sadly, you know this is being manufactured from a ruling class of elites in our country. It's no wonder time. The people are losing confidence in our government. Well they are, and the polling shows that they've lost confidence in the FBI, which is shocking and to people like me, I'm concerned because of the threat to American liberties. But on a personal level, I spent my whole life literally in federal law enforcement, thirty three years in the FBI, and then since then I've been very much engaged with them and other aspects of the criminal justice system. And for me, it's heartbreaking. Oh I bet it was at a lunch yesterday with a group of retired agents and they all share the same feeling. It's heartbreaking, I mean really heartbreaking. But and be fixed if people are just willing to recognize the problem, stand up and say, okay, mistakes, so may we got to restore the culture, not the culture, restore the culture. Well, the thing that's amazing to me, Tom, you know, you look at these downline FBI agents, wonderful people honoring, you know, to to our you know, to we the people, and they're compromised because of that small percentage. Let's just say one percent. Okay, so one percent is you know, is the tail shaking the dog. And there needs to be

28:33 a concerted effort by these you know, fair minded agents as much as they can. Uh. And of course, I mean we're talking careers on the line, uh, you know, bucking, bucking the system. But we need somebody to stand up, Tom in order to reclaim the FBI and to make it great again because the infrastructure, you know, all the all these experienced agents they're there and they just want to go to work and do a great job, you know, for themselves, the family, for the American people, and and move on, not not get caught up in all this political morass that's holding them back. It's compromising them. And I can only imagine what you must be feeling as a veteran ATBI agent, proud of this agency and so many others like you and uh, and that valor and and and dignity is being stolen away by a very small minority that want to uh, that want to control the government and blow up our constitution and uh really you know, cheat their way into into control and power. This is not this isn't not a good thing. It obviously is hurtful to everybody involved.

29:45 And you're right, and I'm with you one hundred percent. We've got to get the right kind of leadership in place, backed by uh, you know, backed by the forces, those uh, those positive forces within the FBI that want to support a cultural change, a leadership change, and to bring back the honor and dignity of this one's great agency. That's it, exactly, Bill, And a big part of it is restoring the primacy of the constitution. Special agents were always trained to operate within the framework of the Constitution. Unfortunately, since September eleven, understandably, perhaps a new class of individual has arisen in the FBI, the intelligence analysts, and they don't deal directly with the public. They don't deal with the searches and the interviews that directly affect people's liberty, but they speculate, and unfortunately, it's given rise to this whole idea that somehow the American public is the enemy, not people who are supposed to protect and cherish and guarantee their rights, but they're the enemy.

30:55 So then you have these crazy things like investigating Catholics, like the Latin mass ideas percolate up like that when you have no guidelines exactly institutional god rails have to be restored well, and like you said, uh, you know, they're collecting data and the data is just there and it lies in files and it's not vetted. It's just an idea, and without any kind of vetting and qualification, you get goofy things like let's go after Catholics who who want to pray in Latin. I mean, this is absurd that this is what has come down to because at the bottom line time, as you know, this is such a waste of resources, and you know, on top of the fact that it does violate our god given liberties that we need to cherish with all our might. Yes, it's it's it's looking for this, searching for a violation rather than looking at the violations that are in front of them. And I mean I sound like a broken record, but restoring within the FBI, restoring the primacy of the Constitution is key, and of course the special agents have always been trained in that. If I can just say this when I have a great recollection and I've gone over this with other people and recent retirees from the FBI is in our classroom training as new agents.

32:24 Most of the time was spent on studying the Constitution, but particularly the Bill of Rights, that is the first sentiments. And we had instructors who told us that we should not look at the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments to the Constitution as obstacles we had to overcome. We should embrace those those amendments. And we were given back then a pocket sized copy of the Constitution to keep in our breast pocket and have it with us. And one of our instructors told us, if you have the Constitution with you when you're sitting down and interviewing a citizen, when you're searching somebody's home, if you have the Constitution in your pocket, you you won't go astray, you won't make mistakes, you won't cross over that line. And a lot of us did that. Now it sounds corny to some people, but that's what you have to get back to. Tom. Tom, Look, look, look what Look what airline pilots do when before they get on the plane, it's all first principles. They got to go back make sure everything's the standard. Right.

33:32 They're checking you know, they're they're checking every instrument. They're checking every you know, every aspect of that plane so that they don't get an oops. So, you know, this is the thing we've we've gotten so casual and just assuming that everybody knows about the Constitution. But we have to be reminded. I mean, I find it quite amazing that the Bible itself, God tells us in his word, I think, for every day of the year, for you know, some form or fashion to remember, don't forget, you know, So for every day of the year, in his word, we're reminded to remember and not for it's human nature to forget. And that's wisdom from somebody that by experience realized that having a constitution and the reference in front of you is key to your job. And this will serve as a you know, as those those bumper guards and guidelines so that you don't get yourself you know, hooked up right. Yes, And in the past we had great directors like Louis Free and Judge William Webster who constantly reminded us about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, and question operations or undertakings that were being proposed, how did that fit within these constitutional guidelines? But now we have and this is well documented in the Twitter files and other information that's come to light, some of it thanks to Jim Jordan's

35:02 committee that we have Elon Musk, we got thank Elon Musk. Yes, the agents and analysts participating in monitoring and censoring the speech of Americans on Twitter, that is a definite crossing of a line, and that should have never come about. A former Director, William Webster, he had us saying, he repeated to us all the time, and I worked directly for him an FBI headquarters for a while, and we always heard this when issues came up. We must do the job that the American We must do the work that the American people expect of us, but in the way the Constitution demands of us. And if that mantra will repeated, you would never have a task force of agents feeding Twitter the identity of US citizens who's speech should be taken down. That's just over the line. You wouldn't have people proposing anything that would infringe on any religious group in America. That's just over the line.

36:12 And that's what has to be restored. That is you're exactly right, Tom, that is the current condition the state of the Union, the FBI and its relationship with the American people, and you lay it out quite clearly. Okay, this is but we need to get to the point we need to make that shift so that we're in pursuit of those first principles that you outlined that will once again, you know, bring honor and respect to the FBI, which everybody wants. We the people want that. We want to know that we can count on the FBI that they're taking care of us. I mean, you know, it has been a rough, i'd say a rough decade for the FBI, whether it has to do with school shootings and reports that the FBI had, you know, dozens of dozens of bits of information and warnings about a school shooter, chose to ignore it, and then we have carnage happening on a high school campus. We have reports of the FBI interjecting themselves in a kidnapping plot of Governor Whitmer. We have suggestions that now regarding January sixth, there could be as many as forty FBI agents or associates involved in what happened in January sixth, And we still, as you said in your own words, we still have not gotten the whole truth and nothing.

37:40 But so it's been a hot mess, and this is why it's going to require, you know, leadership has got to lead the way, just as you said. They've got to come in and be clean and lay it out and say okay, and then tell us how they're going to address this. And so you're going to tell people what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, how you did it, and how, and the results of it is so much better as a result of this vision and this new uh you know, this new leadership and energy within the agency, because that's what we all want. Tom bottom line, we need the FBI, yes absolutely, and I don't go along with anybody who proposes doing away with the FBI, of breaking the FBI up. But but there is a role for Congress and there are things Congress can do themselves to move things along.

38:36 We know that they have the ultimate trigger there. They have control over the budget and that's a threat they can use. But functionally, one thing they can do is address some of these reforms and some of the statutes specifically phies them, which is not well understood. Quite frankly, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act fies them was initially passed nineteen seventy eight when William Webster was the new FBI director. He set the gold standard for its use and it was used very limitedly, but very very specifically as it was as it was initially required to gather intelligence on foreign agents resident in this country. So there's the two basic things with FISER. It was not to gather evidence. It was to gather intelligence which would be then furnished to the national decision makers i either President and others. And it was only to be used on foreigners because it has a much lower standard of probable cause than criminal warrants do. After September eleventh, once again, this was another thing that got off track. And this is something that happens throughout history with these crises, but it got off track. FISER was amended so it could be used against Americans more broader than American It is what they call us persons, which a citizen. This is all. It was all under the Patriot Act, right, that was part

40:07 of it. But the Fizer Act itself was amended and US corporations also came under it, and then it's been amended again and again and again over the past several years and its uses had been changed. It's become much more permissive in its use. The original fizes required both the Director of the FBI and the Attorney General to personally sign each application. That authority has now been delegated to a dozen different people in both agencies. So it's much more permissive promiscuous. In the late seventies, in that first decade or two of its use, there were a few hundred fizes a year. Now there's several thousand a year. And thanks to the Inspector General, we know that there are thousands of fizes on US persons. Well, and of course car to Page is the one that came to light and that we know about. Congress can amend that and rein it in and get fies it back to its original intention.

41:12 It is a valuable tool, but only to be used against foreigners and only to be used to gather intelligence, not evidence. Well, Tom, let me ask you this. Because of the nature of FISA number one, also the nature of the marketplace. I mean, we've become a globalist, you know, economy, so you all, you have a lot of people involved. It's not so much that it's just all America all the time. You've got nations investing and involved. So they're coming in, So how do you handle uh, you know, a FISA request and it could be somebody with dual citizenship. Uh, you know, And I'm not I agree with you.

41:54 I think we need to be real careful about how that instrument is used. But you know, it's some of the lines get blurred. And you know, when you consider what the marketplace looks right now, it looks like now with all the international business that we're doing. Well, you're exactly right. And an aspect of that which which became problematical in the origins of the Russian collusion investigation cross via hurricane, which hasn't been looked at or discussed that much by Congress or anybody else. Is this a phenomenon that began is what they called the Special relationship between the United States and Great Britain that originally grew out of World War Two in the close cooperation of World War two. That's evolved into a formal compact called the Five Eyes and includes the United States and Great Britain as well as Australia, New Zealand and Canada. And it's been codified. There's a lot of secret agree instant connection with it has been modified over the years, but essentially that agreement between mainly the United States and Great Britain is at its heart that we will not spy on them or spy on one another, and we will share any intelligence with each other. And that has there's a there's an Achilles heel in that whole process. Uh and and

43:29 and actually in the publications in the United Kingdom they're more concerned about it than we are. They have a spying operation, an electronic spying operation in the British government that rivals NSA, the National Security Agency in this country, that sweep up everything out of the air, not just your conversations, but your text your emails, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And in Britain there are safeguards as there are in the United States. In the United States, the NSA as well as the CIA for that matter, are forbidden to spy on Americans in this country. That's clear. They have similar restrictions in Britain. But there's a back door. And John Brennan bragged about using this back door at the beginning of the Russian collusion investigation. If the Brits pick up information out of the air on American citizens, they can furnish it to the United States, to the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and if the NSA picks up information on British subjects out of the air, they furnish it to the Brits in that way. No, technically they're not spying on American citizens. That other guy is, yes, And so that's been the back door, and this back door is still open, and that's something the Congress should address and the treaties should be resolved. And now nobody

45:00 in America and the press that I can find, seems to be too concerned about this. The Brits are, for instance, and I have something in my book about this. When Princess Diana was killed in Paris, yes, shortly thereafter they were all kinds of investigations. And shortly thereafter, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, the NSAY in the United States admitted they did not furnish it, but they admitted they had thousands, thousands of pages of her conversations. This is the United States government has thousands of pages of conversations on this British princess. Well, of course they were furnishing it through the back door. To m I five and MI six. Over in the UK, the press and Britain were very outraged about that, but you didn't hear a peep in this country. Stops and things. The reverse happens as well, exactly. I'll say that's something Congress can address. Yeah, without a doubt, Tom, We've got We've got a less than four minutes left here, and I want to give you a free form opportunity regarding your book, the Fall of the FBI, how a once great agency became a threat to democracy. What the reader should take away and the solutions that you offer in your book. Well, let me say this thank you Bill about my book. I did not want it to be all negative. I love the

46:34 FBI. Anybody who reads the book knows I love the FBI. So my sub theme in the book, or the theme of the book is the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the good is what the FBI has done, what it can be. And I put in there some of my own adventures which I think most people would find entertaining. And I was on the periphery as a think you know of some very historical cases exactly as the attempted assassination of present President Reagan, the Crash of TWA eight hundred pan M one oh three. I was not the main character, but I have some knowledge of those I brought those into it into the book to bring out some minor points that people might not generally know. The bad in the middle is injustice. I've seen some injustice in my career in law enforcement and my continuing work with the criminal justice system. I was very naive as a young man. I believe you know, justice was blind. I now know sounds simple to say it, but there are a few people in jail who maybe shouldn't be in jail, and there are a lot of people who should be in jail who aren't. To be simplify it, and then the ugly, the good, the bad, and the ugly is what has come to light in the last half dozen years, beginning with the Russian illusion investigation in Komi and Mullah's changing of the culture of the FBI to the detriment of American civil

48:09 liberties. And that's what we have to be pay attention to and beyond God about exactly. Well. The good news is, tom we did it before, we can do it again right, yes, And whenever there's a crisis, these mistakes. I'm may with the overreaction after September eleven, mirrors with what in World War two. President FDA he decided to turn Japanese citizens. We all know that was an error, that was a violation. And another great president, Abraham Lincoln, perhaps one of our greatest presidents, he suspended the rid of habeas corpers. I think, looking back on it now, we all know that was wrong. But he was in a crisis and he overreacted. And I think we overreacted with some of these amendments after the Tiber eleventh attack, and we have to correct it so no longer is used as a tool to violate Americans' rights. But it goes back to what you said earlier, which is so key to this. If we are we are glued to the Constitution and our Bill of Rights, this will help keep us on course, will it not. Yes, that needs to be the guideline that needs to be restored in the FBI and the Department of Justice, that needs to be restored to primacy. Everything has to be looked at and corrected through that filter. The words of Judge Webster when he was FBI directors still apply.

49:39 We must do the work the American people expect of us, but in the way the Constitution demands of us. Oh, perfect perfectly said Tom Baker said over thirty three years of investigative and management experience as an FBI Schedule Special Agent, he has a experience with police management training issues, having served as a management instructor at the FBI Academy. The author of the Fall of the FBI, how a once great agency became a threat to democracy, Tom, I cannot thank you enough. I appreciate you and thank you for reminding us that we have a lot of gold in them our hills, in the infrastructure of the FBI, that it is redeemable in a change of culture and a change of leadership to get the FBI back on track. Thanks again for being with us. Appreciate you. Thank you for the well our Thanks to Tom Baker for being with us today. For more information and to be a part of this mighty Martinez movement to turn to God and to save our country.

50:49 Go to Bill Martinez Show dot com. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine upon you, and may His peace fall upon you as well. Go and be blessed beyond your imagination. Take care,