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FBI turns over details of 5000 employees who worked on January 6 cases
- throw0101c 2y agoThere is a lawsuit about this, "FBI agents file class action lawsuit against Trump’s Justice Department over ‘retribution’ for Jan 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations" * https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fbi-trump-jan-6-investigation-class-action-lawsuit-b2692163.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... "FBI agents sue DOJ to block release of who worked on Trump, Jan. 6 cases": * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/04/fbi-firings-purge/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/04/...
- abeppu 2y agoThe cognitive dissonance here is at another level. Had FBI staff refused to work on these cases when the Bureau directed them to, would that not have been exactly the "deep state" behavior that the Trump conspiracy fringe complained about for years?
- tacitusarc 2y agoOr if the Justice Department directed the Bureau and the FBI refused, that would be a clear example of this sort of administrative power Trump’s coalition supposedly hates. The FBI also has a reputation as populated by generally very straight laced conservatives, so this is an odd situation to watch unfold.
- apothegm 2y agoThe issue isn’t the compliance with the order. It’s the order being issued in the first place.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- abeppu 2y agoBut - Responding to the agency-level decision to pursue these doesn't need the info on these 5k staff - The decision to investigate these is part of the FBIs job. Very obvious, visible crimes took place. It doesn't matter whether you agree with the perpetrators on some things; they broke the law as written. The outcome of investigations was convincing enough to get a lot of convictions (btw should we expect judges to be targeted next?). There have been times when the FBI pursued stuff where it wasn't clear that a crime occurred. I recall seeing stuff about the FBI tailing casual environmental activists going to some small peaceful protest. Those politically motivated wastes of resources when there was a lot of room for discretion are perhaps cause for concern. Jan 6 people who broke into a federal building, attacked police officers, and destroyed property are not such a case.
- benmmurphy 2y agoIts difficult to gauge exactly what issue the current administration has with the FBIs handling of Jan6. However, there are some people from the conservative side of politics that believe crimes were committed on Jan6, the people deserved to be punished for those crimes but the prosecution went too far and used novel applications of the obstruction law that was wildly inappropriate. For example it can be entirely consistent to believe people should be punished for shop lifting but they should not be executed for shop lifting.
- abeppu 2y ago- the FBI itself doesn't control prosecution right? The DOJ more broadly does, but the FBI doesn't pick the prosecution's legal strategy as I understand it. But if the prosecution attempts to overreach, we rely on courts to reject those arguments, not purges. - your analogy to shop-lifting seems like quite a stretch. Unlike shoplifting, assault is a violent crime. To my understanding, no Jan 6 convict was executed or sentenced to death. Prison sentences for assaulting an officer don't seem wildly out of line. The defendants had in some cases explicitly expressed their plan to e.g. abduct congressional representatives. This was not shop lifting.
- amarcheschi 2y agoI was quite flabbergasted by the "let him at least work for some time" rhetoric. I do not know if it's because america never lived under dictatorship like many other european countries, but this is not okay. Purging scientific data is not okay. Granting people access to write permission on federal payment systems is not okay. I could go on with other items, but it wouldn't be useful. Perhaps an american movie quote can explain it better, given HN demographics is made by nerds like me: This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applauses
- ctrlp 2y ago[flagged]
- amarcheschi 2y agoI did not get your point
- mbb70 2y agoWhat does this hand waving about corruption in scientific research/publishing have to do with the mass firing of those deemed disloyal to the new administration? What has the new administration done to combat corruption in science? I am probably arguing with chatgpt but someone has to.
- ctrlp 2y agoYou are not arguing with chatgpt, which should be apparent since such arguments would be censored. Maybe I'm a jailbroken chatgpt? I'll have to check my system prompt. What has the new administration done to combat corruption in science? Defunding corrupt institutions for a start. They literally just did that. This "disloyalty" argument only makes sense when you understand that the entire patronage network is bound up in corrupt institutions protecting their revenue sources. You're rooting for the bad guys.
- quickslowdown 2y agoHard disagree. We can agree on Science the institution being imperfect, while acknowledging that a Twitter style hostile takeover of our government is absolutely unacceptable with no wiggle room for bullshit artists to throw out red herrings.
- davidw 2y agoIf this were happening in another country, outfits like CNN would be writing things like "Regime purges security forces it deems disloyal" https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-junta-establishes-him-as-head-of-government https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-junta-establishes-h...
- croes 2y agoCNN is a tough position because it’s in the country of the purge
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoYep similar to reddit going on a banning spree of subs critical of Musk right now. Speak up and you go out of business. Everyone’s in a heads down situation hoping they aren’t noticed.
- RoyTyrell 2y agoPlease do correct me if I'm wrong, but the only subreddit I heard was banned was WhitePeopleTwitter, and that was because there were comments doxxing and implying or directly calling for violence against the Tesla/SpaceX engineers Musk is using to "audit" the OPM, and the mods were doing little to nothing to stop it.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoNo a few transgender subs as well. There’s also a massive ban wave of any sub reddit says is unmoderated which they claim to be unrelated but timing… https://www.reddit.com/r/BannedSubs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BannedSubs/
- taylodl 2y agoThat's how the Nazis took over Germany. Everybody kept their heads down.
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- TwoNineA 2y agoThese are Stalinist purges, without the violence. From outsider perspective, this is extremely sad and worrying.
- tstrimple 2y agoThis is what they were promised. This is what conservatives voted for. This is what conservatives want. The warnings were ignored for way too long. > “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be” ~ Kevin Roberts - President of Heritage Foundation Now maybe we can stop pretending that we all want the same thing and just have different ways to get there. People have very different value systems and it has been on clear display for decades now.
- taylodl 2y agoThat's why they're terrified of Luigi Mangione. He's evidence that the left may not allow this to be a bloodless revolution. That's why they've suppressed the news about his case. They want the public to forget. Never forget.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoI wonder if Trump is going to go after the security person who shot Ashley babbitt? If the jan 6 rioters were doing nothing wrong, then that guy pretty clearly just committed murder.
- Hizonner 2y agoThis seems suboptimal.
- tmaly 2y agodepending on which political side you are on, you are likely seeing a different movie than what the other side is seeing.
- walls 2y agoDepending on whether or not you live in the Fox news cinematic universe, you mean.
- jmyeet 2y agoA difficult part of all this is that fascism doesn't have a universal definition. If anything, it's a subjective test of traits. I personally think Umberto Eco's definition is a good starting point [1]. But a key part is that there has to be an in-group and an out-group [2], which pretty much requires some great moral panic or perceived threat. For this reason you may hear the description that fascism is a "suicide cult". Why? Because the in-group continually shrinks as out-groups are eliminated and new out-groups are found. A good example of this is describing the "Judeo-Christian" country. If there's one thing I can guarantee, it's the Christian fascist movement ever succeeds in eliminating its perceived enemies, they'll turn on Jewish people next. Attacking those who worked on J6 prosecutions does two things: it feeds into the narrative about the "deep state" and identifies a new out-group to rally around. American conservatism is fascism. It's only purpose is to punish one's perceived enemies. Cruelty is the point. Chaos is the point. All of this distracts from the true purpose: looting from the public purse. $8 trillion of the nation's ~$35T in national debt in the almost 250 year history of the US happened between 2016 and 2020. The vast majority of this was wealth transfer to the ultra-wealthy. 2024 to 2028 will be that on steroids. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism [2]: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-10-23/how-fascism-works-the-politics-of-us-and-them/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-10-23/how-fascism-wo...
- tacitusarc 2y agoObama, 8 years: 9.5 Trump, 4 years: 7.8 Biden, 4 years: 8.4 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/mar/12/joe-biden/fact-checking-joe-biden-on-debt-accumulated-under/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/mar/12/joe-biden/... https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225 https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and... It’s not that I don’t think the debt is a problem, but it’s also typically a conservative talking point. Given your rhetoric on conservatism, and your representation of the facts, it seems unlikely to me you actually care about this.
- abeppu 2y agoI dunno, I think it's a real point badly made. In the first Trump administration, people talked about the emoluments clause and all the ways Trump was getting extra revenue from charging the Secret Service for hotel rooms at his properties when they were protecting him, or pressuring foreign diplomats to stay at his hotel to curry favor, etc etc. But the scale of this stuff was tiny in comparison to federal spending and wouldn't show up on any graph of the national debt or the federal budget. But then he not only got away with everything, the SCOTUS ruling on immunity for "official acts" gives him broad protection for basically anything going forward. If he was directing Musk to use that Treasury Department payment system to send huge deposits directly to Trump's accounts, there would be no consequences. There's no reason not to milk the office for everything he can, and the institutional safeguards have collapsed.
- neilv 2y agoI hope they'll be OK, individually, and as an institution. I think of the modern FBI as generally straight-laced people, who take their sworn duty seriously. Among all the crazy coup-like dismantling and subversion of government going on in recent weeks... starting purges of principled people who might still have some power to help keep a rogue branch in check... I guess would be one of the moves.
- ctrlp 2y ago[flagged]
- jf 2y agoSurely there is an other way that doesn’t involve exposing American citizens to violence
- amarcheschi 2y agoEvery human being is politicized. Especially if we're talking about the people in organizations that in the cold war period funded far right terrorism in europe, and organized coups in south america
- neilv 2y agoAre you saying that there's a problem of people in the FBI being politicized?
- thehoff 2y agohttps://apnews.com/article/trump-loyalty-white-house-maga-vetting-jobs-768fa5cbcf175652655c86203222f47c https://apnews.com/article/trump-loyalty-white-house-maga-ve...
- helf 2y ago[dead]