Authored by Sam Faddis via AND Magazine substack,
The expression “crossing the Rubicon” refers to the actions of Julius Caesar in crossing the Rubicon River and marching on Rome. Roman armies were forbidden to do so. The rule was very practical. The Romans understood the danger of allowing a large armed force to march on the capital city. To allow this might spell the end of the republic. Best that popular conquering generals and their armies stay a safe distance away and respect the democratic institutions at the heart of Roman democracy.
Caesar broke the rule. He marched on Rome. He didn’t care what the Senators thought. The rest is history. Within a generation, there was no republic.
The FBI has now taken similar action. It has signaled in the clearest possible manner it does not care what the people or their elected representatives think. It will do what it pleases, and the consequences be damned.
The recently released Durham report paints a graphic picture of an agency out of control. The FBI did not blunder into an investigation of Donald Trump, his campaign, and his associates. The FBI undertook to deliberately destroy Trump and those around him including General Flynn. The FBI took unto itself the power to decide who could be President.
That fact has now been publicly exposed. The whole nation can see that the FBI acted in violation of law and every tradition we have had since the inception of the republic. The FBI has responded with remarkable clarity.
It did nothing wrong. It does not care what Durham (or countless whistleblowers) say(s). It does not care what Congress thinks. It will do as it pleases.
The Assistant Director of the FBI for Counterintelligence, Suzanne Turner, just testified before Congress. Asked about the Durham report, the one that said her agency had run amok and tried to stage what amounted to a coup, she responded by saying she had not bothered to read the report nor had she been briefed on it.
When pressed further she offered to take questions back to the FBI and see if she could get someone else to answer them. Contempt dripped from her every word and every mannerism. The concerns of the people’s elected representatives were clearly of no interest whatsoever to her.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating the possibility that the current President of the United States took money from foreign interests, including Communist China, in exchange for policy decisions. In other words, the House is pursuing evidence that suggests pretty strongly that Joe Biden works for Beijing. As part of that investigation, the House has demanded from the FBI copies of reports that apparently show the FBI knew about this some time ago.
The FBI has refused to provide the documents. Meanwhile, there are continuing reports that whistleblowers from within the federal workforce who provide information about the Bidens are being retaliated against and sidelined. In some cases, they have had their security clearances taken away and been suspended without pay. That’s what happens to FBI agents who think Congress is still in charge.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has blasted the FBI for impeding the investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, calling the federal agency “very patronizing.” He has also said that the FBI does not “respect anyone.” All of that is crystal clear. The days when the FBI would scurry to take action and avoid Congressional disfavor are long gone. The Bureau is above all that now.
Meanwhile, the FBI has announced that it destroyed all of the evidence it gathered into the actions of Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the mountains of foreign money that flowed to the Clintons when Hillary was Secretary of State. This comes after revelations that the FBI shut down four separate investigations into the Clinton campaign in the runup to the 2016 election. While the FBI was manufacturing evidence of a non-existent Trump-Putin connection it was actively covering for Hillary – and it is continuing to do so.
Three years ago, the FBI was handed Hunter Biden’s laptop which literally drips with evidence not just of corruption but of Chinese intelligence connections to Joe Biden and his associates. As far as anyone can tell, the FBI continues to sit on that computer and intends to take no action of any kind to investigate its contents.
Information just surfacing indicates that the FBI routinely used FISA warrants to spy on domestic political opponents inside the United States.
The FBI no longer answers to the elected representatives of the American people nor does it care what they think. It did not get sloppy. It did not make some errors in judgment. Its leaders decided that they were entitled to do whatever they chose and to ignore our laws, our traditions, and the judgment of the nation’s citizens.
Most importantly, however, nothing that has happened has changed any of that. The FBI is not chastened. It is not scrambling to change course and make reforms. As an institution, it does not believe that it has done anything wrong. It will continue to act in the future precisely as it has in the past.
The FBI has crossed the Rubicon. The consequences of that action, if not addressed immediately, will shake the foundations of the republic.