In a piece about the culture at the FBI during the late spying operation on the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump, Victor Davis Hanson asks the question about the culture at the FBI.
So if someone in the hierarchy decides upon some course of action, it is sensible for everyone under him to follow orders. Indeed, it would be crazy for anyone not to follow orders. That way leads to a quick exit from the bureaucracy and no pension thank you very much.
So the "widespread wrongdoing at the top" is probably merely "the top" following orders from their superiors in the White House -- or perhaps following the nods and winks from the White House.
Plus, given that everyone knew that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, it would be career suicide to start balking at the effort to keep an eye on Trump, just in case. People in the new Clinton White House would know about the problem chappie at the FBI that wasn't on the team.
The unusual thing is for the director of some bureau to ignore orders from on high, as the guy in charge of the Venona project intercepting and decrypting Soviet communications did back in the 1940s.
So, before criticizing any government department or program for its failures, one must start from the fact that 97.2 percent of bureaucrats are going to go with the flow and do whatever they are told. Because they know what is good for them.
Thus, it is laughable to criticize, for example, former Nazi officials for "following orders." Anyone saying that hasn't stopped for a moment to think about the nature of an administrative hierarchy. What is remarkable is to discover a mid-level bureaucrat that is not following orders.
And on that front the case of Bruce and Nellie Ohr is instructive.
How dare, how dare those scumbags hold that meeting on My Birthday!
And, wouldn't you know, Bruce Ohr never mentioned on his Form 278e Public Financial Disclosure Report, as he was required to do, that his wife was something more than an "independent contractor."
My point is that if you don't want government functionaries spying on political campaigns or putting a word in with a friend among the higher-ups then you shouldn't give government the power in the first place.
Because the mid-level functionary is normally going to "follow orders" from the chap at the top. And the only time he is likely to deviate from that rule is when he has some personal relationship that encourages him to inject that into the bureaucratic process.
That's what happened in the Trump Russia spying operation and that is what will happen next time. Because that is how administrative bureaucracies operate and that is how the guys at the top want them to operate.
[If the culture of the FBI is] exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top... where exactly [did] Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.And
why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an “insurance policy” to take out a presidential candidate?The answer, of course, is quite simple. The whole point of an administrative bureaucracy like an army or a government department is to put the chaps in the hierarchy and especially on the front line into a situation where the natural and obvious thing is to follow the orders from on high.
So if someone in the hierarchy decides upon some course of action, it is sensible for everyone under him to follow orders. Indeed, it would be crazy for anyone not to follow orders. That way leads to a quick exit from the bureaucracy and no pension thank you very much.
So the "widespread wrongdoing at the top" is probably merely "the top" following orders from their superiors in the White House -- or perhaps following the nods and winks from the White House.
Plus, given that everyone knew that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, it would be career suicide to start balking at the effort to keep an eye on Trump, just in case. People in the new Clinton White House would know about the problem chappie at the FBI that wasn't on the team.
The unusual thing is for the director of some bureau to ignore orders from on high, as the guy in charge of the Venona project intercepting and decrypting Soviet communications did back in the 1940s.
The only reason that Venona survived, allowing us to later reconstruct the fateful politics of that era, was that the determined Military Intelligence officer in charge of the project risked a court-martial by directly disobeying the explicit Presidential order and continuing his work.Normally the bureaucrat in question will go with the flow, because that is the natural and physical thing for a guy in an administrative hierarchy to do.
So, before criticizing any government department or program for its failures, one must start from the fact that 97.2 percent of bureaucrats are going to go with the flow and do whatever they are told. Because they know what is good for them.
Thus, it is laughable to criticize, for example, former Nazi officials for "following orders." Anyone saying that hasn't stopped for a moment to think about the nature of an administrative hierarchy. What is remarkable is to discover a mid-level bureaucrat that is not following orders.
And on that front the case of Bruce and Nellie Ohr is instructive.
Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr was perfectly positioned to advance the Russia collusion narrative. He had a rare set of relationships -- ties to opposition researchers and the FBI -- and would use his links to both in 2016 to connect federal law enforcement to those advancing Trump-Russia conspiracy theories.See, his wife Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS, the chaps that were financing the Steele dossier. So
when Steele invited her [Nellie] and her husband [Bruce] to breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel on July 30, 2016. “Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce would put in a word with the FBI to follow up on the information in some way.”And he did, because he knew FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page. Yeah. So personal relationships can trump the hierarchical relationships of the bureaucracy.
How dare, how dare those scumbags hold that meeting on My Birthday!
And, wouldn't you know, Bruce Ohr never mentioned on his Form 278e Public Financial Disclosure Report, as he was required to do, that his wife was something more than an "independent contractor."
My point is that if you don't want government functionaries spying on political campaigns or putting a word in with a friend among the higher-ups then you shouldn't give government the power in the first place.
Because the mid-level functionary is normally going to "follow orders" from the chap at the top. And the only time he is likely to deviate from that rule is when he has some personal relationship that encourages him to inject that into the bureaucratic process.
That's what happened in the Trump Russia spying operation and that is what will happen next time. Because that is how administrative bureaucracies operate and that is how the guys at the top want them to operate.
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