Project 2025: Where the FBI Enforces the President's Agenda
Because absolute loyalty to the President will matter more than the rule of law (Scroll to the end to listen)
Since I drafted this newsletter, a couple of things have happened. 1. The Guardian ran this story about 45 supporters urging him to jail Alvin Bragg if he wins in November. 2.
wrote yesterday about changes House Speaker Mike Johnson made to the House Intelligence Committee that oversees the FBI. He elevated Scott Perry and Ronny Jackson, two very problematic Republican extremists, to that committee at a time when the FBI is investigating numerous cases of domestic terror, months before an election where the far-right is threatening more domestic terror. Which makes today’s P2025 FBI newsletter another case of Project 2025: Happening NOW.Let’s take a short trip back in time. It’s 2017, and former FBI Director James Comey is giving testimony about 45’s definition of loyalty and quid pro quo.
Comey testified that:
…45 hoped he would stay and Comey had assured him that he intended to do so. The veiled threat came when Trump told him: “lots of people wanted [his] job.” Comey is very clear about how he interpreted the conversation:
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI’s traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
While Comey seems to think that he had made his point clear to Trump, the president doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. Comey’s retelling of his March 30 phone call with Trump suggests that the president was trying to cash in on allowing Comey to stay on. He asked the director what the FBI could do to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation and complained about Comey’s public confirmation of the FBI’s investigation. In the last call between the two, per Comey, Trump asked about his request on Russia and Comey referred him to the acting deputy attorney general.
He said he would do that and added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know.” I did not reply or ask him what he meant by “that thing.” I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.
Source: The Brennan Center for Justice
The framers of Project 2025 learned an important lesson from this experience: They propose to change the structure of the FBI and suborn it to the President’s agenda. Thus, they will ensure “loyalty.” Here’s how.
The Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency. To ensure prompt political accountability and to rein in perceived or actual abuses, the next conservative Administration should seek a legislative change to align the FBI Director’s position with those of the heads of all other major departments and agencies.
Project 2025, page 552
Politically accountable = LOYAL to the President and the President’s agenda
Project 2025’s Republican authors cite numerous “deep state problems” within the FBI. If these sound familiar, it’s because they are the same charges being leveled by Republicans in Congress, the same conspiracies governing numerous ongoing Republican ‘investigations,’ the same garbage spewing endlessly from conservative media.
Revelations regarding the FBI’s role in the Russia hoax of 2016, Big Tech collusion, and suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020 strongly suggest that the FBI is completely out of control. To protect the Constitution, fight crime effectively, and protect the nation from foreign adversaries, the next conservative Administration should begin to restore the FBI’s domestic reputation and integrity and enhance its effectiveness in meeting actual foreign threats.
Project 2025, page 549
Essentially, Republican administrations should always demand complete loyalty and should never be investigated or prosecuted for their own crimes. This is how authoritarian regimes operate.
Project 2025 proposes several changes to force the FBI to be loyal to the President’s agenda.
The next conservative Administration should:
Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all major active FBI investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to the national interest. This is an enormous task, but it is necessary to re-earn the American people’s trust in the FBI and its work. To conduct this review, the department should detail attorney appointees with criminal, national security, or homeland security backgrounds to catalogue any questionable activities and elevate them to appropriate DOJ leadership consistent with the new chain of command (discussed below). The department should also consider issuing a public report of the findings from this review as appropriate.
Project 2025, page 549
Does anybody wonder what major active FBI investigations and activities this crowd considers unlawful or contrary to the national interest? Perhaps it’s raiding the home of a former President and finding boxes of classified documents. Or maybe it’s prosecuting him for taking them. It could even be that a team is investigating him for selling those secrets to the highest bidder, be it friend or foe.
Align the FBI’s placement within the department and the federal government with its law enforcement and national security purposes. DOJ veterans often opine that the FBI views itself as an independent agency—accountable to no one and on par with the Attorney General in terms of stature—but the fact remains that “[t]he Federal Bureau of Investigation is located in the Department of Justice.” It is not independent from the department (just as Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not independent from the Department of Homeland Security) and does not deserve to be treated as if it were.
Project 2025, page 549
Yesterday, we covered how P2025 proposes to make the Department of Justice loyal to the President’s agenda.
Now, P2025 proposes to force the FBI to report to a politically captive Department of Justice who will carry out the President’s agenda. As a reminder, that agenda is vengeance, retribution, and punishment.
Prohibit the FBI from engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity. The FBI, along with the rest of the government, needs a hard reset on the appropriate scope of its legitimate activities. It must not look to or rely on the past decade as precedent or legitimization for continued action in certain spaces. This is especially true with respect to activities that the FBI and the U.S. government writ large claim are efforts to combat “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “malinformation.”
Project 2025, page 550
As we covered last week, all information must align with the President’s agenda. Any information that challenges his agenda, exposes his criminality, implicates him in nefarious activities, questions his abilities, implies cooperation or complicity with foreign adversaries, or attempts to tell the truth will be suppressed. “Misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation” will be the norm for this Christo-fascist Republican regime.
What was the price of James Comey’s “lack of loyalty?” He lost his job. Slavish loyalty to the President’s agenda is the only thing that will matter if Republicans win in November.
Calls to Action to Keep P2025 From Ruining YOUR Life
Check your voter registration or register to vote: I Will Vote
Support Democratic campaigns directly in competitive races: Blue24
Support earlyworm’s 2024 Giving Guide: earlyworm
Report a Project 2025 incident: Not On Our Watch
Mail postcards to swing-state voters: Postcards to Swing States
This needs to be on the front page of every newspaper and news site.
Here's something we can do - Focus For Democracy - https://www.focus4democracy.org/ - I've been attending their Zooms; then I donate to the organizations they recommend. These organizations have proven plans to get more Democrats to actually vote - and they also educate undecided voters as to how they can help protect our democracy. I'm now supporting the organizations they recommend, rather than just flinging donations at various Democratic candidates. This is something we CAN do. Please take a look. As everyone in this group knows, we're in an emergency.