The retired FBI agent who was first on the scene when Ronald Reagan was shot has condemned the bureau for the Durham Report revelations and its dealings with the Republican Biden family investigation.
Thomas J. Baker has been highly critical of the culture directed by director Christopher Wray and the “abuse” of power by federal law enforcement.
In an interview with DailyMail.com, he said that in his more than 30 years in law enforcement he had never seen conduct like that disclosed by prosecutor John Durham’s findings.
The report released last month found there was insufficient evidence to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia before the 2016 election and tore up the Dirty Dossier Steele report.
Baker also said there was no reason the FBI could not turn over the document, which the GOP says details a criminal scheme involving Joe Biden, and criticized the bureau and the intelligence community for sweeping Hunter’s laptop and its contents under the rug.
Thomas J. Baker has been highly critical of the culture directed by director Christopher Wray and the “abuse” of power by federal law enforcement. He is pictured right with Nancy Reagan
He was an FBI Special Agent for 33 years in crime and terrorism roles. He also has experience as a legal attaché in Canberra, Australia and Paris, France.
When President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr in 1981, he was the first officer on the scene.
He then investigated what happened taking into account what the office had learned following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Baker, who was first on the scene after Ronald Reagan was shot, condemned the bureau for the Durham Report revelations and its dealings with the Republican Biden family inquiry.
Since leaving the FBI, he has watched with dismay as he has been embroiled in a multitude of scandals and has faced accusations from Republicans he has become “politicized” and “armed”.
He exposed these criticisms in his recent book The Fall of the FBI: How a Once-Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy.
In it, he details the “downfall” of the FBI after 9/11 and the signing of the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA – which has now been used to target American citizens.
The law became a focal point of the Durham Report. Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page has been placed under surveillance for a year under a FISA warrant.
Since publishing his book in December, Baker says many of his opinions have been validated by Durham’s findings.
The final report revealed numerous abuses by agents who tried to find links between Trump and the Kremlin before the 2016 election.
“The fact that they (the office) would open an investigation without any sort of probable cause is beyond shocking. It’s unimaginable,” Baker said of the Durham report’s conclusion.
Baker explained how the FBI’s field office in Washington would bring in agents working on sensitive political investigations to make sure they had enough reason.
He said FISA used to target foreign agents residing in the United States.
“After 9/11, the law was amended and amended again and again.
also said there was no reason the FBI couldn’t turn over the document, which the GOP says details a criminal scheme involving Joe Biden, and criticized the bureau for scanning Hunter’s laptop and its contents under the carpet
“Now, as the Durham Report revealed, it has been used against an American – Carter Page, who has been found not to be involved in any form of conspiracy or collusion.
“Yet for a year he was subjected to this excessively intrusive electronic surveillance.
“This is an absolute abuse that Congress could correct in the future.”
“There are thousands of Americans each year subjected to this surveillance.
“Of course there is no recourse and there is no way of knowing who they are.
“It’s not like in a traditional court, Congress can fix this.” They created the FISA law. They can amend the Pfizer law to limit it, to eliminate the surveillance of American people.
He laid out these criticisms in his recent book The Fall of The FBI: How A Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy
“It’s not just a few bad apples, it’s a bad culture. The culture must be changed. It is very difficult to do, but it is doable.
“Every time something happens, someone gets fired or allowed to resign.”
Even though those officers have pulled out, he says that does nothing to address the underlying issues with the office.
One example he mentioned was senior FBI agent Timothy Thibault, who resigned in August 2022 amid scrutiny over claims he suppressed the Hunter investigation.
He was wal
There were others in the government, not necessarily the FBI, who published this bogus report. Um, what two years ago that was Hunter Biden’s original laptop was most likely Russian information.
“The FBI had the laptop in their possession for some time.
“They have the technical capability and the personnel that they could determine if it was genuine in a very short time, maybe days or hours.
“So there really was an effort by a lot of people to derail the Hunter Biden investigation.
“And the other thing that Congress has revealed is millions and millions of dollars flowing into, uh, Biden family members from overseas accounts, particularly in China.
“I mean alone to anyone, unless you’re extraordinarily naive, it really stinks.”
When President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr in 1981, he was the first officer on the scene. He then conducted the investigation into what had happened taking into account what the bureau had learned following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Baker is referring to the slew of bank transactions uncovered by Republicans showing the flow of money from Beijing-linked accounts that ended up with members of the Biden family.
It’s part of the GOP’s broad investigation into the first family and alleged influence peddling that began when Joe Biden was vice president.
A dossier has become a focal point of the investigation – and Republicans believe it could be damning.
The document in question is Form FD 1023, which FBI Director Wray is to deliver to members of the Congressional Oversight Committee.
Republicans say that document details a criminal scheme involving Biden, a foreign national and a bribe of up to $5 million.
The form is most often used to record information obtained from a confidential human source.
This could be from a cooperating foreign service such as MI5.
Baker suggests the FBI might be hesitant to turn over the document because they fear it will lead to the identification of the source.
But he says there is a way around the problem, and that is simply by deleting the name and all personal details.
“It has been a situation for 50 years.
“I worked in the FBI’s office of Congressional and Public Affairs and we received requests from Congress on a regular basis, and we were always able to accommodate them.”
He says he was able to disseminate the information while protecting the source by rewriting the content of the document.
“When Congress first made this request to the Bureau, they could have come back and said, ‘We’d like to respond by giving you this redacted version that would disguise the identity of the person.
“I don’t know why they are so ugly with Congress right now and making it such a problem.
“There are several ways to accommodate Congress without jeopardizing the informant.”
