FBI

The institution experiencing mass firings and political interference.

“And to your point, uh, just going back to the Blanche conversation with Matt Schlapp there, I don't know h- how else to explain. Like, he's at a partisan event, and he says the stated reason for the canning, to use Matt Schlapp's phrase, of all these career of…”

The federal agency responsible for counterterrorism and counterintelligence, currently facing concerns regarding leadership and mission focus.

“It's a reasonable and serious worry because the organization has been demoralized, shrunken, uh, deployed in ways that are hard to understand from the outside, moving people to immigration work or other work away from their core responsibility. When what the F…”

The primary organization discussed regarding its role in national security, investigative work, and budget management.

“... very difficult adversary, as are the Russians, as are the Chinese. And so a huge part of the FBI is this work to try and figure out, so what are these adversary nations doing? Where are they? What are they looking at? And how do we get a grip on it? And th…”

The federal agency where career agents have been fired or felt duty-bound to quit.

“It's so painful. I've heard from a lot of them. I've tried to help some of them. I have more money than most of them, and so I've tried to help them financially until they're able to get a job. You know, you saw there was an agent whose wife was dying of cance…”

James Comey served as the director of this organization from 2013 to 2017.

“Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A quick scheduling note tomorrow. We're gonna do something a little different. We're gonna be live with one of your favorites at three PM in the East on Substack and YouTube. And so as a res…”

Discussed in the context of future leadership and investigating public corruption.

“... you know, whatever. I'm living on the edge. Um, one last thing. The Trump corruption stuff now, I mean, like, we've spent so much time thinking, like, talking about, you know, what, what happens for accountability for people that are inside the administrat…”

The agency's role in counterintelligence is a central theme in Comey's writing.

“What I do with these books is I wanna show people with cool stories what it's really like in different parts of the worlds that I've seen and, and prove that you don't need to make stuff up to be exciting. And it occurred to me I've not shown people the shadow…”

Investigating journalists and leakers, which the speakers view with skepticism.

“Yeah. Boy, I meant to ask you wh-when we were talking about the, um, The Atlantic stories about Patel. The FBI is now investigating the journalist of The Atlantic that wrote that story as part of a broader leak investigation. There's also a Wall Street Journal…”

The agency responsible for infiltrating the Black Panther Party and neutralizing Fred Hampton.

“So there was a, a Panther named William O'Neal, um, one of Fred Hampton's-Bodyguards, friends, um, but the FBI had recruited him as an informant. And we now know that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were determined to bring down the Black Panther Party and were de…”

The FBI was actively pursuing the author's parents during his childhood.

“I think like most kids, my life felt ordinary to me when I was growing up. Uh, the truth is, I always knew, from my very first memories, I knew that the FBI was chasing us. I knew that we were fugitives. Um, my parents tried to explain it in terms of, you know…”

Bernadine Dohrn was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list for her activities with the Weather Underground.

“This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. As the child of parents who were radicals in the '60s and revolutionaries in the '70s, my guest, Zayd Ayres Dorn, spent his early years underground with parents who were on the run, disguising themselves with fake identities…”

The author's mother was on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list while raising him.

“Of course. I've asked them many times, uh, growing up, and then i- in the writing of this book, I asked them over and over what they were thinking at that time. And, you know, their answers are funny. I mean, my mom, when I first asked her about it for the boo…”

The federal agency responsible for investigating the cyberattacks and maintaining the Cyber's Most Wanted list.

“message boards trying to get firewall companies to fix their stuff. I can't imagine what happened to turn him, to make him break bad in this way. It actually says in the FBI's Cyber's Most Wanted poster that this guy hacked into 80,000 Sophos firewalls. And ju…”

The federal agency that released a report estimating the number of affected devices.

“We'd, we, we kind of worked out that there were a huge amount of devices, um, affected. I think in the aimed, uh, FBI report that came out about this, I think they mentioned 80,000. Um, I'd hazard a guess it was probably more, you know?”

The agency that placed the threat actor on their 10 Most Wanted list.

“One of the actors involved in all of this, we talked about him earlier. His name is, you know, he used the handle gbigmao. Um, that we eventually figured out his real name. We have pictures of him. And the guy appears on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list today. Uh…”

Mentioned by the host as an institution being embarrassed by the behavior of political figures.

“they think that, Mag- MAGA thinks that looks strong. Do you know how weak that looks? Do you know how embarrassing that makes the FBI look? The FBI agents know how embarrassing, law enforcement knows how embarrassing that makes them, them look to see that. The…”

Abel Pena served 26 years with this agency before founding his non-profit.

“Kim believed her estranged husband might have taken the dogs to Texas, and she found someone there who could help. Abel Pena had 26 years with the FBI before he retired and founded a non-profit called Project Absentis to help find missing people. What is the d…”

Accused by the speaker of persecuting Wen Ho Lee as a distraction from other political scandals.

“Oh, I love this story. For the money.Um, if, if you remember the scandal of '96 and all the Chinese money in his campaign in '96, they spent all their money hyping, or, or all the media attention hyping up Charlie Tri and Johnny Chung, who were like low-level …”

Mentioned in relation to informants involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.

“that they killed not just one but two girls' schools in their initial assault. They killed... In one building, they killed 100 and I think 73 or 74, uh, almost all little girls, and then in the other one was 20 more, and with, and with that was an experimental…”

Tasked with handling counterintelligence regarding foreign infiltration in local government.

“I'm putting that on the FBI Counterintelligence division. That should've never been allowed to happen in the first place. Um, and no, I don't mean that they're totally benign. But look, I... Worst case scenario, China invades or just surrounds and forcibly rei…”

The federal agency that seized the surreptitiously recorded tapes from the lawyer.

“... got a court order. Before I could execute the court order to go get it, the FBI was there. They seized it from the lawyer, and this guy was indicted who had done the, um, the surreptitious, uh, taping. So it was a wild situation to then take that and manip…”

Mentioned as an agency that would normally investigate corruption but is currently unable to do so effectively.

“Corruption you have in any political system, and you often have it in democracies, too. But in an autocratic society, you have more corruption because the, the legal system is controlled. And so what you have, for example, in the United States, the fact that D…”

Described as being politicized and avoiding investigations.

“It's different. It's different. I mean, we didn't have anybody try to use the White House to make money in this way before, so hard for me to say what would have happened in, like, I don't know, the Clinton administration. But we didn't have a completely polit…”

Allegedly requested that Meta demote a specific news story.

“Yes. I was looking back through the history of this happening on both sides of the aisle, and, uh, in Mark Zuckerberg's, uh, testimony, I think, in front of Congress, he said that he was repeatedly pressured, um, for months by the, uh, Biden-Harris administrat…”

Mentioned as an example of a high-profile entity that has been hacked.

“They hacking everything. They hacked into the FBI.”

Discussed in the context of legal involvement regarding an abusive ex-partner.

“Yeah. Yeah, and when you say he- heavy hitters, you mean the FBI had to get involved, right? Like, had to get to that level or not really?”

The FBI intervened to help protect Panettiere from a dangerous stalker.

“the time to sit here and do this." But then there are those that y-you realize are incredibly dangerous, and they mean what they say. And the F-FBI, uh, and Secret Service had to get involved, and, um, I mean, I thank them both, all of them, from the bottom of…”

Referenced in the context of the politicization of the Justice Department and intelligence agencies during the Watergate era.

“I, uh... But, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this election and, um, there, no, no two elections are alike. Um, but if you were gonna say, "Well, what is this election most like?" It goes back to one that you will not remember, but I do, which is the …”

Federal agents are described as chasing bootleggers on rural roads in the 1930s.

“Suddenly, lights flare in the rear view mirror. A sedan surges out of the gloom, [engine revs] its engine howling as it closes the gap. The bootlegger has no doubt who's inside, federal agents, and they're not here to play nice. [gunshot fires] A muzzle flash …”