Written by James Gagliano, CNN law enforcement analyst, but old time FBI guy.
As a self-proclaimed adherent to Hanlon’s Razor, I once cynically viewed the frenzied focus on FBI actions during the 2016 Russian election-meddling investigation as partisan and overwrought. Hanlon’s Razor suggests that we never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity or incompetence. Having proudly served in the FBI for 25 years, I bristled at insulting accusations of an onerous deep state conspiracy. Some obvious mistakes made during the investigation of the Trump campaign were quite possibly the result of two ham-handedly overzealous FBI headquarters denizens, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, clumsily seeking to impress each other with ever-increasing levels of loathing for then-candidate Donald Trump.
FBI employees are entitled to their own political views. But senior-level decision-makers who express them on government devices, while overseeing a supremely consequential investigation into a political campaign, simply do not possess the requisite judgment and temperament for the job.
Their stunning text message exchanges and talk of an onerous “insurance policy” in the event Trump were to win prove how ill-suited they were for their positions in James Comey’s cabinet. What other steps might they have taken that have yet to be discovered? The inspector general is soon set to release a report into FBI actions in the effort to surveil the Trump campaign. Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department is conducting its own review, and U.S. Attorney John Durham recently expanded his investigation into the case as well, by converting the review into a full-blown criminal investigation. Barr has faced backlash from critics of his investigation, who ironically have referred to it as a witch hunt.