Seamus Bruner - Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption

Advance Praise for Compromised

As the mainstream media averts its eyes from the truth, the Government Accountability Institute once again hits the bullseye and reveals the deep corruption at the heart of the FBI and DOJ leadership under the Obama Administration. The vaunted independence of these once respected agencies has turned into unchecked power and unaccountability. By exposing the corruption, the author presents the American people and our elected officials a road map for returning these agencies to their historically respected role in U.S. law enforcement.

Victoria Toensing, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Joseph diGenova, Former United States Attorney

Following the money is an important way to get to the truth. Seamus Bruner has done that precisely in Compromised . Anyone concerned about our country should read this book.

Kenneth Sukhia, Former United States Attorney.

Our criminal justice system has been horribly corrupted and politicizedespecially by the Obama administration. This important book is a must read as it peels back the layers and exposes the truth.

Sidney Powell, former Assistant US Attorney, Appellate Section Chief, and Author of #1 Bestseller Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice .

A BOMBARDIER BOOKS BOOK

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-64293-075-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-076-4

Compromised:

How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption

2018 by Seamus Bruner

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press, LLC

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the federal agents and officials
who remain uncompromised. To the countless men and
women who perform their duties faithfully and
free from politics and bias. To all who personify the
motto Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. Thank you.

Contents

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) occupies a trusted position in our society. It infiltrates the mob. It busts drug rings. It vigorously pursues the modern slavery of human trafficking. The FBI is the long arm of the law, protecting America against foreign and domestic terrorists and criminals.

Americans respect the FBI for the bravery of its agents and their fidelity to the mission. Both in real life and in popular culture, the FBI is often the good guy in the blue suit. FBI special agents are known not only for their crime-solving skills in the field but for the professional expertise they bring to cracking the casein many cases they are lawyers or trained accountants. Special agents in field offices across America even enjoy the admiration of the local police forces whose toes they must sometimes step on.

That is not to say there are not bad apples among the rank-and-file. Of course, those will be found in any large organization, especially one as hierarchical as the FBI. Indeed, the bureaus reputation remains intact despite the well-known abuses of its longtime director J. Edgar Hoover during the civil rights era. As we have seen in the current investigations surrounding the allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election, FBI personnel are human beings too.

In addition to its work against criminals, the FBI also investigates possible corruption by our elected officials. And it is here that the potential for the bureau to be influenced by powerful outsiders is most dangerous. The FBI, as part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), is often tasked with conducting surveillance, undercover work, and sting operations to catch corrupt government officials who are enriching themselves through their public positions, taking bribes, or are unduly influenced by foreign powers. It was the FBI that busted federal employees spying for the Soviet Union, China, and other foreign powers. The FBI obtained the evidence of legislators taking bribes for pushing legislation or pressing regulators to look the other way for their powerful benefactors.

The character and the integrity of the bureaus leadership is critical. The FBI and DOJ must be led by public servants who put aside their political ambitions and personal wealth to serve the public trust. Compromised describes what happens when they do not.

As an investigative journalist for thirty years, I have learned how easy and tempting it is for leaders in government service to falter in that trustto rationalize their pursuit of personal gain and political advantage. Our government is full of ambitious politicians who do this routinely, gaining more power by serving dominant commercial interests. By exploiting vague ethics laws, these bad actors find ways to return favorssometimes years later and one or two steps removed from the action. But their fingerprints remain.

I co-founded the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute (GAI) in 2012 to find those fingerprints. We are a nonprofit group of investigative journalists and data analysts. We do our own research and publish our findings in reports, or as raw material shared with media organizations to further pursue, or as books such as Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption . I am proud to say that Seamus Bruner volunteered for me in 2011 and was one of the first people to join our organization. His work on our previous projects has been exceptional.

With the support of our generous donors, GAI has found a niche doing the kind of enterprise journalism that reporters and editors at the major TV networks and the largest newspapers used to do, but no longer have the resources or the time to do themselves.

Previous GAI investigations exposed corruption in Congress, in the bureaucracy, and by politicians who enrich themselves and their relatives through sweetheart deals and complex forms of bribery. My most recent book, Secret Empires , became a number one bestseller on The New York Times list, revealing the many ways that members of Congress and even a president have enriched their children and closest friendslegallyby taking advantage of loopholes in financial disclosure laws that govern how they can earn money, but place no restrictions at all on their family members.

Released in 2015, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich , revealed how Hillary Clinton and her husband leveraged their nonprofit foundation empire for personal gain, and how they engaged in numerous schemes to enrich their friends and donors. That book was also a New York Times bestseller, and was quoted and cited extensively during the 2016 presidential campaign. The team at GAI spent almost two years researching the book, and we are proud of its success.

My 2013 book, Extortion , showed how the Obama administration targeted industries for criminal investigation but chose not to pursue key political donors. It showed how lawmakers used campaign slush funds to bankroll their own lifestyles. Throw Them All Out (2011) documented how legislators enhanced their own stock portfolios based on confidential information they learned in supposedly closed hearings. This led to passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, outlawing the practice.