12 Apr Fiefdom-Maximizing State Security Bureaucrats
We’ve spent a great deal of time over the last several years writing about the administrative state, American bureaucracy, and especially the fact that American bureaucracy functions differently from most Western bureaucracies and serves as evidence that Max Weber’s “ideal type” was profoundly wrong on one significant point. Bureaucracies do not always follow the lead of the executive and, therefore, do not always reflect or enact the will of their political masters.
Hannah Arendt’s defense of Adolf Eichmann – “the banality of evil” – was based on Weber’s contention that bureaucrats do as they’re told, that they are “dehumanized, becoming unthinking, reflexive cogs in the bureaucratic machine, even to the point of committing mass murder because they were “just following orders.” And while Arendt was almost certainly too solicitous of the monster Eichmann, the belief that bureaucracies mechanically follow their political supervisors’ dictates remains largely intact.
Even casual observation shows that this is inarguably not the case in the United States, however, where federal bureaucracies flout both executive direction and legislative oversight with compunction and without consequence. We’ve tried to understand and explain why this is the case countless times, and we’re certain that there are countless other explanations better than ours for this anti-democratic treachery.
Today, though, we’d like to focus less on the cause of this phenomenon and more on the outcome of it, specifically, one frequently underplayed outcome.
When we think of an out-of-control administrative state, we tend to think of those whom George Wallace called “pointy heads,” the pseudo-intellectuals in short sleeves and bow ties who regulate every aspect of our day-to-day lives. We think of the EPA trying to enforce a climate-change agenda or of the SEC trying to do the same. Pencil pushers, we might call them, men and women with their own personal fiefdoms of authority who are constantly trying to expand that authority and those fiefdoms with petty rules and procedures designed explicitly to make our lives more difficult and frustrating.
Certainly, that’s part of it – especially the bit about every agency in the federal government trying to enforce its own climate-change regime. But that’s not all of it and probably not even the worst of it.
We tend to forget that national security and state security agencies are bureaucracies too, and that they also function of their own volition, embracing the will of the executive only when it suits their interests.
Consider, for example, the following news stories, from yesterday alone:
First up is the New York Post and its warning about people who are so evil that they don’t have sex and, worse yet, use slang terms!:
New documents released Monday warned that common internet lingo is being associated with “Violent Extremism” by the FBI.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project said it used a Freedom of Information Act request to expose FBI documents that include glossaries showing that common internet slang has been flagged as an indication of “Involuntary Celibate Violent Extremism” or “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism.”
Part of the document refers specifically to “incels,” or those “involuntary celibate,” whom the “threat overview” describes as possibly seeking to “commit violence in support of their beliefs that society unjustly denies them sexual or romantic attention, to which they believe they are entitled.”
The assessment notes, “While most incels do not engage in violence,” some have been involved in “at least five lethal attacks in the United States and Canada.”
Many of the terms mentioned in the FBI’s list of incel terminology are either widely used across the internet or innocuous in nature.
The one term in the glossary is “Red Pill,” which comes from the 1999 film “The Matrix” and has been used a metaphor for seeing hidden or politically incorrect truths about the modern world, particularly when it comes to politics or dating.
Next up is the House Judiciary Committee and its discovery that the FBI also fears people who have too much sex and, therefore, too many babies:
Today, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) revealed that the FBI relied on information derived from at least one undercover employee and sought to use local religious organizations as “new avenues for tripwire and source development.” This proposed outreach plan included contacting so-called “mainline Catholic parishes” and the local “diocesan leadership.” The documents reveal that the FBI also expressed an interest in “leverag[ing] existing sources and/or initiat[ing] Type 5 Assessments to develop new sources with the placement and access” to report on suspicious activity….
“In addition to [redaction], engage in outreach to the leadership of other [Society of Saint Pius X] chapels in the FBI Richmond [area of responsibility] to sensitize these congregations to the warning signs of radicalization and to enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.”
The FBI similarly noted two other opportunities to engage in outreach with religious institutions in the Richmond area, citing a desire “to sensitize the congregation to the warning signs of radicalization and enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.” This outreach plan even included contacting so-called “mainline Catholic parishes” and the local “diocesan leadership.” The FBI also expressed an interest in “leverag[ing] existing sources and/or initiat[ing] Type 5 Assessments to develop new sources with the placement and access” to report on suspicious activity.
The document itself shows that its contents, including its proposal to develop sources in Catholic churches, were reviewed and approved by two senior intelligence analysts and even the local Chief Division Counsel. Whistleblowers have advised that the FBI distributed this document to field offices across the country.
Next, we have a revelation about one Catholic whom the FBI likes – the nation’s Catholic in Chief:
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago on the ground that potentially classified records existed there. According to press reports, Biden Administration aides were “stunned” to hear of this development.
However, new NARA records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
This stunning revelation suggests that NARA was misleading Congress about the White House’s role in the shocking raid of President Trump’s home, and the fact that the Biden White House was acting “on behalf of” the DOJ raises significant legal concerns.
And finally, we have a bit of news about the events that took place in Washington on January 6, 2021
While Democrats and the media have long pushed the narrative that Donald Trump “incited” an “insurrection” at the Capitol, fresh evidence has emerged about the federal government’s involvement in the January 6th riot, raising further questions about the government’s role in the incident.
A lawyer representing members of the Proud Boys filed a motion revealing the presence of numerous informants who had infiltrated the group. The motion (read it below), obtained by Julie Kelly of American Greatness, stated that FBI informants were vastly outnumbered by both confidential human sources (CHS) and plain-clothes operatives from other law enforcement agencies.
According to the motion, “[a]n agency called Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seems to have played a major role in handling and running CHSs among the Proud Boys on January 6, 2021.”
The motion contains even more incriminating information about the informants, particularly their behavior captured on bodycam footage. According to the document, “This new information is plainly exculpatory.”
The undercover agents seen in the footage were not only observing but actively encouraging the protesters with chants like “Go! Go! Go!” “Stop the Steal!” and “Whose House? Our House!”
The attorney also highlights the presence of 10 to 12 previously unidentified plain-clothes Metropolitan Police officers among the Proud Boys on January 6th, indicating that there were at least 50 informants who had infiltrated the group on that day.
To be sure, not all of this is as nefarious as it seems in the various media and advocate portrayals. But some of it is. And some of it is even worse. And this was…Tuesday.
Our friendquaintance, the serial entrepreneur and current presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, has said that he would shut down the FBI and then build a new domestic law enforcement agency “from scratch.” At this point, he says, the institution itself has become corrupt and is no longer able to be reformed from the top down. It’s best just to dissolve the Bureau and start all over.
This is not an outrageous idea and has much to recommend it. The catch is that it only works if the “corruption” of the FBI was caused by something unique to the FBI, something that can be changed or avoided in its next iteration. But that’s likely not the case. It is far more likely that the corruption of the FBI – like the corruption of the IRS and the corruption of the EPA and the corruption of the SEC – is part and parcel of the broader corruption of the American federal bureaucracy, caused by whatever unique characteristics make the American administrative state resistant to democratic control.
Part of this, of course, is related to William Niskanen’s 55-year-old observation that rational bureaucrats are budget-maximizers and, by extension, fiefdom-maximizers. But again, that’s not all of it. Over the last few decades, Republicans have been just as generous to the federal bureaucratic coffers as Democrats have been. And yet the federal bureaucracy seems especially resistant to control by Republicans. So, there is something else at work here.
Figuring it out and finding a way to do something about it are, we think, imperative.
