Live data from Hacker News

What's Going on at the FBI?

lawfaremedia.org

181–189 of 189 posts

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#181
post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

> authoritarian president

Basically the analysis of anyone who already hated Trump and didn't vote for him. I see a lot of psuedo intellectual exercises in this thread that basically amount to trying to relitigate the election or sour grapes for having lost.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single Canadian IT board I'm on is filled with conversations on viable alternatives to American service providers and tips on how to switch.

I don't doubt that "Every single Canadian IT board" hates Trump with a passion. I just proposed that it doesn't matter. First, any attempt of geopolitical decoupling will be stymied by the likely outlook of an imminent 180 as soon as the beloved progressives are back in charge – as well as the ridiculousness of how that 180 would look. Secondly, its not a coincidence that the American Empire (aka the West) consists o…

I'm not trying to win an argument, but it looks you cynically do not get something.

The damage is done already. It's not because of the Republicans or the dummies they chose to follow that we would decouple, or because of the Democrats that we wouldn't. It's because of the whole, unpredictable thing that it's become.

Politically, business-wise, trade-wise, the trust is shattered. How could it be otherwise, if a handful of men have the power to disrupt so much the news, the administration, the businesses? How couldn't we expect much worse in the future?

There be a 180 or not, _the damage is done_. To reinstate trust will take decades. The best we can do now, it to handle you as an unreliable, dangerous hegemon, indeed. Was that what you wanted? You're losing at this game, because you might be big and strong, you're not the only boy in town.

So, second, yes, not a surprise. But you would be aware that climate change is already shuffling the cards there for everyone, deep and strong. Whatever happens, the "American Empire" will have a hard time maintaining its might and reach in the coming 20/30 years without cooperation, because the resources each zone will need to devote to its own survival and order will massively surpass those required to maintain abroad influence.

Why claim to take over Groenland, Panama and Canada, if not to tighten control over water trade routes? That at least, is rational in some way, and also revealing.

It's not certain how federations and markets will organise themselves in those conditions. What is obvious is that Europe, among others, needs to decouple quite a bit from the USA, while keeping ties in the hope they come back to their senses. IT is the easy part, however hard it's going to be. The USA give us really no choice there.

Oh, by the way, look at the sales and prospects for Tesla in Europe.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries are quick to comply with the new admin's demands. Are you so sure? In just a few days you come to that conclusion? What's certain is the damage that the US is self-inducing. The reaction from abroad, whatever form it may take, has not had the time to take shape yet. > Culturally you will still be writing on this platform in 5 years (because, put simply...) The more I read here, the more I realise how both…

> [independant citation needed] Here you go. From America to Zimbabwe, have fun trying to find a country where X is not in the top three tier: https://appfigures.com/top-apps/ios-app-store/germany/iphone... > Are you so sure? In just a few days you come to that conclusion? So are you saying, that your currently unverifiable thing in the future ( has not had the time to take shape yet ) has to stand against the actual…

> From America to Zimbabwe, have fun trying to find a country where X is not in the top three tier

Because obviously, the numbers of 25Q1 matter? or the trend where alternative platforms are exploding and migration initiatives are organising? We might be settle this not before coming December, but even then, will this matter.

> has to stand against the actual happenings of Canada and Mexico agreeing to Trump's terms within a day?

You might want to dive a bit more in depth into what actually happened there: did they agree, or did they present what they are already doing as something new? The PR win is still for Trump because he looks like a strong boy, but...

Moreover, you know how governments really react. It takes weeks, if not months.

> Like another commentator said "Every single IT board" will be filled with the same arguments as are expressed in this threat here (ie. that we're basically witnessing Kristallnacht 2.0).

If you want to draw that sort of parallels, it ~looks more like January 1933, pre-Reichstag fire. But that's not really the parallel that makes things concerning. It's what's actually happening in 2025.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I want bad things to happen to bad people... I agree with restorative justice, but the people using a law as a weapon do not so I hope they see the same mercy they show their victims.

What's missing in the first part is that these people believe bad things have already happened to them that's why they do bad things to others

I'm fully aware of my bad thinking, believe me. But so far I haven't been able to overcome it.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question "is it legal" is only relevant in a state which respects laws. Which is, increasingly, not the United States.

We have a court system, it's just slower and draws far fewer headlines than the executive branch. The Trump administration EO banning birthright citizenship was put on hold. A U.S. District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the OMB payments freeze for grants and other programs, which actually forced the administration to rescind the order. Don't believe the Trump admin when they claim they hav…

Thats what happened in Brazil, when the local supreme court, one judge in particular, went to war against the Bolsonaro government. Don’t think the SCOTUS has this power no?

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#186
post #3

J. Edgar Hoover ran the US for decades and was more powerful than any president. His successor, far less powerful, is in a power struggle with the richest man in the world and a political party that controls all three official branches of government. The situation looks unpredictable. It may be worth rereading Mike Lofgren's essay from 11 years ago, before Trump's first campaign, in which he tries to apply the Turkis…

Who do you mean by "his successor"? Surely not the new, 'acting' FBI director, as they have comparatively little power?

I didn't realize Wray had already resigned, and would have assumed the same as you, but, much to my surprise, this article about acting director Driscoll came out yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/politics/fbi-director-...

By Adam Goldman

Reporting from Washington Feb. 4, 2025

Brian Driscoll, the acting director of the F.B.I., has become an improbable symbol of quiet resistance toward the Justice Department’s campaign to single out F.B.I. employees who investigated the Jan. 6 riot.

To start, Mr. Driscoll’s appointment was an accident. Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, the White House identified the wrong agent as acting director on its website and never corrected the mistake.

Even if he was not meant to be leading the agency, he has defended the rank-and-file. His refusal at the time to furnish the names of employees, as top Justice Department officials desired, and his insistence that a formal review process be put in place, has spurred widespread support for Mr. Driscoll.

Former and current agents have traded memes and satirical clips celebrating him, offering a rare moment of levity as dismay and deep unease set in across the F.B.I. and as Mr. Driscoll navigates the political perils of Washington and a president who is deeply hostile to the agency.

Known as “Drizz” among his friends, Mr. Driscoll, 45, does not possess the typical G-man bearing of his predecessors, with a bushy mustache and his face framed by long curls. It is a demeanor that has become the focal point of artificially generated memes.

In one, he is depicted as a saint grasping the handbook for agents running investigations. In another, he glances upward, encircled by the words “What Would Drizz Do?” One video, a compilation of scenes from the movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” portrays Mr. Driscoll as Batman doing battle with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in Los Angeles.

Former agents jokingly called his appointment a providential mistake.

A heated confrontation on Friday with top Justice Department officials left many wondering at the time whether Mr. Driscoll had been fired. Scrutinizing agents and others involved in the sprawling investigation into the Capitol riot would touch a startling number of people: The F.B.I. opened about 2,400 cases that involved about 6,000 intelligence analysts, agents and other employees.

In a defiant email Friday night, James Dennehy, the top agent in the New York field office, warned his staff that the F.B.I. was “in the middle of a battle of our own.” Praising Mr. Driscoll and his deputy, Robert C. Kissane, as “warriors,” Mr. Dennehy asserted they were “fighting for this organization.”

In fact, Mr. Kissane, the top counterterrorism agent in New York, had been widely believed to be in line to be acting director, several current and former agents said, with Mr. Driscoll as the No. 2 official. But when the White House unveiled its website to reflect its staff under the Trump administration, Mr. Driscoll was identified as the bureau’s chief.

Rather than correct the error, the administration left it.

Mr. Driscoll had been in charge of the Newark office for only about a week before he moved to the director’s suite on the seventh floor of F.B.I. headquarters in Washington, thrust into the middle of a political firestorm. Rumors of his dismissal continued to swirl on Friday until the bureau released a statement a day later to confirm that he was still in charge.

Friends and colleagues describe Mr. Driscoll as unflappable. He was a special agent with the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service in San Diego before joining the F.B.I. in 2007. His first assignment was in the New York office, the largest outpost in the bureau, where agents form powerful alliances and deep connections.

In 2011, he passed rigorous tryouts and was selected to the F.B.I.’s Hostage Rescue Team, a highly trained unit formed in the years after the massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972. Many operators were once in the U.S. military and served in the Joint Special Operations Command.

Rescue team operators, including Mr. Driscoll, have repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq during the wars there, embedding with Navy SEAL and Delta Force commandos.

Former members of the rescue team said that Mr. Driscoll was dispatched in 2013 to Alabama, where they successfully rescued a 5-year-old boy who had been taken hostage in a bunker. He was a gunfighter on the blue squadron.

He also took part in a dangerous raid with U.S. commandos in May 2015 in Syria in the hopes of finding clues about Kayla Mueller, a young woman from Phoenix who was kidnapped by the Islamic State. (Ms. Mueller died in captivity.)

During the operation, Delta Force commandos killed a top militant leader and captured his wife. Mr. Driscoll later testified in a criminal trial in Northern Virginia about the evidence he collected at the scene, including a red laptop that the Islamic State had used to force Ms. Mueller to watch jihadist videos.

In 2020, Mr. Driscoll returned to New York, where he supervised terrorism cases in Africa, Western Europe and Canada. He then took over the Hostage Rescue Team in 2022, which handles the most dangerous missions inside the United States, like disabling a nuclear weapon or rescuing a hostage held by a terrorist.

Chris O’Leary, a former top counterterrorism agent in New York who worked with Mr. Driscoll, pointed to his experience.

“What the F.B.I. needs most is a principled leader, and we have one right now in Brian Driscoll,” Mr. O’Leary said.

He added that Mr. Kissane, a West Point graduate, is of the same mold as Mr. Driscoll.

On Friday, Mr. Driscoll notified staff about the Justice Department’s efforts to collect the names of all F.B.I. personnel who worked on the Jan. 6 cases.

“I am one of those employees,” he wrote.

Indeed, Mr. Driscoll took part in the arrest of Samuel Fisher, an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, in Manhattan two weeks after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.

F.B.I. agents found over a thousand rounds of ammunition and several weapons, including an illegally modified AR-15 rifle and machetes, in Mr. Fisher’s Upper East Side apartment and car. Among them was a “ghost gun,” which is unregistered and thus untraceable.

In 2022, Mr. Fisher was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge in Manhattan Supreme Court. He also pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mr. Fisher was pardoned by Mr. Trump.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-coups are common and widespread in the last hundred years. If you cannot list at least a few, your history lessons have failed you. And no, being elected to a public office is no blank cheque to dismantle checks on that office by other branches of government.

I understand that a self-coup could happen but to describe it as already happening seems premature... there are some things that will go to the courts sure but even democrats agree the courts are likely to find in Trump's favour. Does that mean that the real coup happened when Trump picked the supreme court justices? Perhaps, but again it was very legal, and not particularly out of step from previous norms. If you co…

Hungary, Turkey. Both have democratically elected leaders that aren't going anywhere soon. They did it softer than Hitler, but once they control the media, they're set. Of course Trump isn't there yet. But he isn't not trying it either.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#188
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WTF? The Democrats are the ones with concrete offers to ease people's suffering. Literally. Stuff like Medicare for all. No. Democrats have concrete offers. The Democrats don't. The Democrats had several opportunities to pass far-reaching reforms like Medicare For All but didn't. There's a massive difference between the ideals of a few activist politicians running for office and the actual policy decisions of a gov…

> generally things are pretty rough But better than everywhere else in the world. Virtually every other country did worse over the last 4 years than the US did. > The Democrats had several opportunities to pass far-reaching reforms like Medicare For All but didn't. They had 2 opportunities to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass far-reaching reforms. They chose to use those two opportunities to fight inflation and s…

You'd have a point if the Democratic party ever acknowledged any of that. Instead the party line has been "things are actually fine the way they are and we're on the right track". Alas, being the adults in the room doesn't get you elected because this isn't The West Wing and Republicans don't simply disagree "but share the same goals".

It literally doesn't matter how much the Democrats have prevented things from being worse in the past because their messaging is what ultimately allowed Trump to win. Twice. This isn't the 1990s anymore. People don't want stable. People are sick of stable because what has been stabilized had already not been working for them before. There's been a massive, crippling redistribution of wealth and political power in all Western economies (and the former Eastern bloc but they were less subtle about it) from the people to the billionaire class. You can no longer pretend that's not happening. At least the Republicans had the good sense to actively lie and misdirect and continue to do so while said billionaires are desparately trying to dismantle the system before it can be turned against them.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#189
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A leader who is democratically elected, and then violates or exploits loopholes in the law to give themselves powers that they are not supposed to have, is engaging in a self-coup. The US Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, the power to determine how the federal government’s money is spent. Elon Musk’s team within the Executive Office of the President have reportedly gained full admin access to th…

> exploits loopholes in the law This is a very interesting way of saying "following the law."

It’s a way of saying “following the letter of a poorly drafted law while being aware of, and not following, its intended spirit”. Just because the law accidentally technically allows you to do something doesn’t mean you should, or that it should be considered morally acceptable to do so.
Post reply on HN