The FBI's Real Insider Threat

Do opinions matter?

Yes, they do. Especially when they are pushed into the public by long-retired FBI agents whining ?about current FBI activities that conflict with their personal visions of how the FBI ought to be.

One of these retired FBI hand wringers is John Nantz. Week after week, Nantz writes some rather indigestible commentary whose central message is often smothered under mountains of metaphors. But now and then, a coherent theme breaks through the layers.

His January 9 article for the starboard listing Townhall is titled “The FBI’s Real Insider Threat.” Nantz describes federal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) hiring policies as “one of the most grave insider threats posed in recent memory” to the FBI.

To support his views, Nantz quotes a couple of familiar names. First is Elon Musk who posted on “X”, “DEI must DIE.” Well, that’s Elon, no more need be said about him.

Next is fellow anti-DEI traveler retired FBI agent James A. Gagliano, whom Nantz describes as “one of the best minds grappling with the weaponization problem.” Really? Compared to whom, Stephen Miller?

Nantz lifted Gagliano’s musings from a piece Gagliano wrote for—surprise—FoxNews.com. Gagliano has long criticized FBI leadership from Robert Mueller through Christopher Wray and blamed them for the many ills that have befallen the FBI in recent years. But he always took care to train his fire on FBI management while heaping tons of praise on street agents.

No so any longer.

Now Gagliano fears the same three letters that Nantz does—DEI. Gagliano wrote, “Many retired FBI agents – to include this author – have long caveated criticisms of the FBI by maintaining the bias and partiality concerns are related to certain FBI senior executives. We then justifiably laud the hard work and faithful service of the vast majority of the men and women who comprise the street-level, case-working special agents. Yet, it is becoming exceedingly more difficult to separate large swaths of FBI rank and file from its questionable leadership.”

So now it’s not just FBI leadership, now Gagliano is throwing “large swaths of FBI rank and file” under the DEI bus. To support his empirically challenged indictment of FBI employees, Gagliano quotes retired FBI executive Chris Swecker’s equally empirically challenged opinion of FBI recruitment efforts.

Here is Swecker’s remarks truncated and edited by Gagliano:

“There has been a seismic shift in the [FBI] culture…[I]n comes [FBI director] Jim Comey and he basically parachutes all these DOJ political appointees into the FBI and slowly the culture shifts over Comey’s tenure and then under [FBI director] Chris Wray it’s accelerated because I think the type of recruit they’re bringing in is more opinionated, more idealistic, more liberal, highly educated, more Ivy League, and they tend to not just follow the facts, they tend to insert their own ideologies, their own opinions because the indoctrination that’s taking place in the schools these days – if you’re virtuous and you’re highly educated, you do everyone else’s thinking for them. You can decide that President Trump is not fit to be president, therefore we need to go after him. You can decide that domestic terrorists only exist on the right side of the political aisle, not on the left side of the political aisle. You can pick winners and losers…It’s no longer ‘Let’s just follow the facts.’ I’m going to say that’s at the highest levels of the FBI…but I think it’s beginning to percolate down to the street level [rank and file agents] as well."

For comparison, here is Swecker’s full, unedited comment as it aired on John Solomon’s “Just the News No Noise” show last year: ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DPN0J3hb6c

With respect to all those DOJ officials that Comey “parachuted” into the FBI, apparently that wasn’t an issue for Swecker when Louie Freeh imported his share of former DOJ folks as his close advisors and Praetorian Guard.

Who can forget the Bucknam Boys, or Howard Shapiro, or the Freeh-driven relaxation of drug use policy that allegedly prevented a FOL (Friend of Louie) from joining the FBI? Or making a policy exception to allow one of big-time FOL Sen. Orrin Hatch’s judiciary staffers to apply as an FBI agent when he was beyond the age limit? ?

But back to Nantz and his anti-DEI rant.

Nantz wrote, “On his first day in office, Biden mandated the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce Policy via Executive Order 13985. Ostensibly, DEIA policy is designed to establish “an ambitious, whole-of-government initiative that will take a systematic approach to embedding DEIA in Federal hiring and employment practices.”

Nantz seems paranoid. He fears that the FBI will soon be—if not already--overrun “with the most radical elements of American society and continue to advance the Obama objective of ‘fundamental transformation.’”

Obama left the White House on January 20, 2017, yet somehow Nantz needs to invoke his name like a dog whistle to trigger a certain demographic—Townhall followers—into a predictable reaction like a bad case of CRT fever.

Nantz’s paranoia goes deeper.

He writes, “DEIA is the old Democrat policy of racial quotas rebranded to lull an unsuspecting populace into indifference, while radical LGBTQ+ interests are shuffled in through the back door. In Section 5 of the executive order, ‘Data Collection’ is mandated, directing the head of each agency to ‘take a data-driven approach to advancing’ DEIA policies. [E.O. 14035, not 13985]

“That means quotas based on immutable characteristics like skin color. Why not reinstitute phrenology and physical anthropology as well?”

Of course, the word quota does not appear in any of these Executive Orders but when used as a dog whistle, it will summon lots of MAGA hounds eager to lift a hind leg on the nearest progressive.

He continues, “’Equity’ is a misnomer. Most people conversant in the English language understand ‘equity’ to mean a state of fairness. However, ‘equity’ in the left’s parlance means sameness of outcome. That is the anthesis [sic] of equal opportunity, meaning everyone, regardless of race, creed, or color is evaluated by the same, merit based standard.

“In DEIA terms, equity means the outcomes are predetermined by quotas (i.e. data collection), selecting for pigmentation, sexual proclivity, and the ephemera of ‘identity.’ Hardly factors designed to construct a competent, capable, and ready cadre to ensure our national security.”

Here is the actual text from E.C. 14035 defining DEIA terms:

“(b) The term ‘diversity’ means the practice of including the many communities, identities, races, ethnicities, backgrounds, abilities, cultures, and beliefs of the American people, including underserved communities.

“(c) The term ‘equity’ means the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment.

“(d) The term ‘inclusion’ means the recognition, appreciation, and use of the talents and skills of employees of all backgrounds.

“(e) The term ‘accessibility’ means the design, construction, development, and maintenance of facilities, information and communication technology, programs, and services so that all people, including people with disabilities, can fully and independently use them. Accessibility includes the provision of accommodations and modifications to ensure equal access to employment and participation in activities for people with disabilities, the reduction or elimination of physical and attitudinal barriers to equitable opportunities, a commitment to ensuring that people with disabilities can independently access every outward-facing and internal activity or electronic space, and the pursuit of best practices such as universal design.”

Only the most narrow-minded and bigoted adherent to White male supremacy could find fault with those definitions. Or worse, someone who agrees that we are not equal under the law.

But those people do walk among us egged on by a former president and his political cronies, who, like dogs, follow closely to his posterior eager to catch an intoxicating whiff of his scent.

Then Nantz pivots to dump on the FBI citing from what could be a list of MAGA talking points:

“As a microcosm of the government-wide institution of DEIA policy, the FBI has become an exemplar of dysfunction. Infamously, the FBI has embroiled itself in a laundry list of outrages (Russia Gate, Hunter Biden’s laptop, FISA and Section 702 abuses, the poorly sourced and written Catholic memo, the J6th investigation v. BLM and ANTIFA rioting, mayhem, and attacks on federal buildings). Biden’s DEIA polices will ensure that the culture of weaponization, rampant at FBI Headquarters will proliferate wildly throughout the agent population.”

Of course, anyone remotely familiar with each of those examples can separate fact from fiction. But when the intent is to disparage the FBI, then nothing is off limits, including soiling oneself paying homage to Donald Trump and holding him up as the FBI’s savior: “DEIA was enacted via executive order and can be undone by the same means. The bold stroke of Trump’s pen can right this wrong on day one.” Yes he can, and on day one Trump can also become a dictator like the others he admires.

No thanks, Mr. Nantz. The real insider threat to the FBI and democracy is not DEI policies, it's another term for Donald Trump.

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