Former FBI Leader Calls for Bureau to Return to What Made It Great

The FBI finds itself in a time of great change. Over the course of its existence, the bureau has had its share of successes, but it has also seen shortfalls and questionable decision-making in its evolution.

To see how the mighty FBI could stumble, we have to look no further than the circumstances surrounding how it investigated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., its investigations of U.S. citizens in the civil rights and other social movements under the infamous COINTELPRO initiative, or its investigation into the first Trump campaign that was initiated by supposed “evidence” supplied by his opponent’s political campaign.

Today’s bureau is struggling to maintain its objective mission focus and its formerly trusted standing as the “World’s Premier Law Enforcement Agency.”

Starting with a cycle of cultural changes after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI was transformed from a reactive crime-fighting organization into a domestic intelligence and security organization.

To some degree, the leadership models, cultural traits, and operational practices that made the bureau great were deprioritized, watered down, and sometimes discarded for new-era management approaches embraced by corporate America over the past couple of decades. The FBI, at its soul, is not comparable to Silicon Valley technology companies; nor is it similar in culture to banking, retail, or financial organizations.

Yet the management practices of these types of private sector organizations were benchmarked by FBI senior leaders in the mid- to late-2000s, and then again circa 2014 to the present in one fashion or another. These practices were integrated or mandated into the bureau’s cultural and operational environments.

The departure from what made the FBI iconic became a procession of short-term and strategic errors, the results of which would not be clear for years to come. Such errors planted the seeds for problems and challenges that have eroded the FBI’s standing with the American public.

One of the primary issues that the American people have deep concerns about is the perceived politicization of the FBI and how it has been recently seen as acting more as a partisan arm of the last administration.

The FBI began showing signs of drifting away from its apolitical stance circa 2016 when senior officials allowed their own personal politics and ideologies to influence investigative decision-making before and after the 2016 presidential election. During my nearly 25 years with the FBI, I never had any discussions or saw any decisions that focused on personal politics or ideologies. In fact, those kinds of conversations used to be expressly avoided and were subject to counseling by traditional FBI supervisors.

The bureau has come under fire for its part in investigating circumstances such as the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian collusion with the first Trump campaign; its involvement in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol; and the raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home over his handling of classified documents.

That said, I believe the FBI can still recover and regain the trust, confidence, and faith of the American public by returning to its roots and restoring its focus on the skilled, objective, professional investigative practices and protocols that made it legendary.

To make this recovery a reality, the FBI must have a new leadership team that can conduct its mission without caving to political hedging, bureaucratic doublespeak, and spin doctoring to cover shortfalls and failures. It must have new leadership that avoids careerism, that avoids organizational distractions caused by chasing public and political approval and caving to emerging social trends, and that avoids a corporate character that can’t seem to resist getting involved in Washington power and politics.

Given an expedited return to capable, principled leaders and a laser-focus on mission excellence in line with the FBI’s mission statement, which is “to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution,” the dedicated people of the FBI can and will make things right.

New FBI Director Kash Patel and his new deputy director, Dan Bongino, look to be highly capable, dedicated choices for bringing about these needed reforms. They now need reinforcements on their new senior leadership team in order to ensure that their vision and direction are fully executed and sustained at all levels of the FBI.

In addition, Patel will require an unshakable will by our national leaders to support him and his team while they urgently reset and recreate the bureau while still addressing the serious threats that face the nation.

The FBI must redevelop and sustain the endurance and warriorship it once had to outlast political pressure and resist giving in to individuals’ personal feelings and political preferences. All FBI personnel must return to a “mission first” mindset that supersedes being popular or liked, because doing what is right is not always the same as doing what is liked.

The bureau must be willing to fundamentally change, and its people must make their own interests subordinate to the mission for the FBI to become the revered organization it once was. If the next iteration of the FBI and its senior officials cannot do this, maybe it will be time for the bureau to become a part of law enforcement history.     

The people of the United States need the FBI, but we need it to be better led and more mission-focused rather than just simply punished, contrite, and temporarily brought to heel for its past misdeeds. We need our FBI to once again be an apolitical, objective, highly competent investigative organization that is free from political maneuvering or personal agendas.

The FBI can and must do this. The United States needs it. And the American people deserve it.

Chris Piehota is a retired FBI executive assistant director. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and represent excerpts from his book, “Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew.” You can follow Chris on X: @ChrisPiehota.

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