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Chris Piehota - Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew
Mon, 25 Nov
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Chris Piehota, a former FBI Special Agent who served as one of the bureau’s top career executives, discusses the dramatic changes he witnessed in the FBI during his 25-year career. Author of Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew, Chris reveals the internal challenges that have led to the FBI’s current crisis of trust, including leadership failures, cultural erosion, and operational missteps. He provides a firsthand account of how the FBI transformed after September 11, 2001, and how those shifts have led to the agency's diminished reputation. From claims of political polarization to public calls for disbandment, Piehota shares why the FBI is struggling to regain the credibility it once had and what it will take to restore public faith in this vital institution. Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew - https://a.co/d/blXwtj9
Chapter 1: What changes did Chris Piehota witness in the FBI during his career?
It was basically, it was an observe, watch and observe list, something like that. It was one of TSA's internal programs. It wasn't the terrorist watch list. Yeah. There is only one consolidated terrorist watch list for the US government, which she was on, however she got on, was one of TSA's internal lists that they maintain for potential security concerns.
So how would she end up on a list like that? Could have been directed. It could have been a report of her, maybe she was possibly being surveilled or she was in danger of some sort. Could have been, they can put you on a select D list is what it's called for additional love and attention at the airports. based upon a lot of factors.
They could even do it based upon the fact that they think you could be sick and coughing your brains out at the airport, and they could pull you aside. I'm not liking the oversight of this list.
Right. But TSA can do that on their own. That's their own. They own the airports. And they can do that if they feel as though there's a security-related issue. And that's the kind of list she was on. It was an internal TSA list. You know, one of the... It happened when she was running for president, and the groundswell is happening again as she was nominated for a DIH Russian asset.
Yeah, that's a story that keeps coming back around. She is the worst fucking Russian asset ever, if she is. It's a terrible story. Actually, she might be the best, right? Well, I guess she's so consumer-facing. I mean, what are you talking about?
Yeah, I think that story – Well, I think they're running out of stories at this point. They're recycling some of the previous stories that were – that had a little bit of traction. And Tulsi Gabbard appears to be a great American actor. But when she was running for president, she could have been on those security lists as well so that they knew she was on aircraft. Okay.
That they knew she was in transit. They knew where she was because she was a higher visibility, higher, you know, higher – I can say consequence passenger. Yeah. Right? She was a VIP of sorts. Exactly. So it could have been something like that as well. I mean, I'm guessing. I'm guessing.
I can see that. I'd give that. But they never took her off. 15% odds. I think the 85% odds, and I hate to say this, is that these systems are weaponized. Not that the system isn't valuable, but individual. And this is a thing I hear often, and people want to throw the FBI. Fuck the FBI. It needs to be redone. It's like, well-
Maybe the organization could be more efficient, but I feel like there is a substantial amount of really good people working inside of it. It's the same thing as the agency or the federal government. Like, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe let's drain some of the bathwater and see if we can get the baby a little bit more clean.
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Chapter 2: How did 9/11 transform the FBI's operations?
And, you know, it worked fairly well when people would take the time to just make the redress request as opposed to just screaming and yelling about being at the airport. And, you know, being at the airport sucks anyway. And getting all those special screening activities just makes it a little more painful.
The reality is, too, even with TSA, and I'm not going to give anybody any ideas, but security is a fucking illusion.
You know, it's interesting that you say that, Andy. I'll tell you what. I used to go out and talk to people, right? And I would say, what is security? To me, and this is the way I used to explain it, because you have everybody talking about security. I'd say, look, what security is, is a man-made concept. It makes us feel better.
And basically what security is, is it's a layering of inconvenience, consequence, and economics. That's it. So inconvenience, you put up a fence. You shut a door. Whatever it might be, put cameras up. That's inconvenience. And then there's consequence. It's the barking dog. It's I'm going to call the police. Those type of things are consequences. I'm going to go to jail.
And then you have the economics on the last part of it. What can I afford to do to secure my stuff? And I'm sure you've heard this when you've watched police shows, and they'll say, why didn't you do that house? Not worth it. Too much trouble. Yeah. Right? Yeah, they're looking for easy targets and hard targets.
So that's all it is. It's just that layering of those three big factors. It just depends on how you do it.
And again, I'm not going to give anybody any ideas. All I'll say is I've flown a lot. public, but I was a charter pilot for a while. And let's just say... I think it's a little softer there. I mean, that's a generous term. There just are vulnerabilities around airports. If people think that TSA is the wall that is holding something bad back from happening, they might be for the idiots.
Anybody who takes a cursory or an educated look at this. Well, I think as the world becomes more dangerous, we have to take a look at those very high consequence assets like airports and things like that. Because you're right. I mean, for the day-to-day knucklehead... Defense is going to stop them. Right.
Yeah. You have a trained... For a nuanced person who wants to do real damage, there are ways to completely circumvent airport security.
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Chapter 3: What are the internal challenges facing the FBI today?
It was after 9-11 because the FBI was operating in survival mode, right? The FBI was blamed primarily and took probably 90% of all the blame. Really? Yeah. I heard a lot of shade thrown at a lot of three-letter agencies.
And they all skulked back into the shadows. They all stepped back into the shadows. The FBI was left out there front and center, just getting throat punched on this thing. And we deserved it. I mean, we didn't do a good job, right? We didn't harden the environment. We weren't looking for threats.
We were reacting to things just like we would for a bank robbery or any other reactive law enforcement function. Well, looking back in the mirror now, so it's 2020. I know, 2020.
Looking back though, I mean, from my understanding, and I wasn't interfacing deeply at that time with the intelligence apparatus, but it seems like One agency would pick up some chatter and another one would pick up chatter and maybe not necessarily directly correlate and also not communicate.
But looking back now, did the agencies, not just the FBI, but in your opinion, the larger intelligence infrastructure, did they have enough pieces to know exactly what was going on or was there just chatter? They had pieces.
fragmentary information that looking at it, like we would look at it now. Yeah, 20 some years in the back. Someone would say, hang on a second. What is this? What's going on here? But that's assuming you have all of the data to look at, not parsed out.
Exactly. And back then, it was actually discouraged. To send things to the agency. Of course, you're fighting for budget. For everybody, right? So, you know, it was cutthroat and they wouldn't send us anything. They looked at us as if we were court jesters at the FBI. We looked at them as this bunch of strange people, especially at Fort Meade, because that is kind of a bunch of strange people.
But we would look at them as like, yeah, these weirdos over here. Chris, we wouldn't share information with the SEAL team literally directly next door with us because we were battling for relevancy and budget. And not only that, but you just had this animosity, right? Yeah.
Right? Between the agencies. Because we were the best and they fucking sucked. Yeah. Absolutely. Right? So, you know, we were cops. They were the spies. Yeah. Right? So there just wasn't a cultural interaction between the agencies that we could put that stuff together fast enough.
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Chapter 4: How does the FBI handle threats from social media?
Chapter 5: What are the implications of the FBI's cultural shift?
That's how some people like to party. I'm not going to judge. I don't know if he would call it a party. Some might. You're right. But here's the thing, though, is that the FBI director comes in And he's taking over a very monolithic and storied organization.
Are there any requirements for an FBI director? Do they have to be previous law enforcement? Do they have to be a previous agent? Well, we've seen all different types, right?
The last agent law—the last director that had an agent background was Louis Free. Okay. He was the last. When was that? I don't even recognize him. Louis was there from— Early 90s through 95, 96. Okay. You know, he was there through like the mid-90s. Well-received? He was well-liked by a lot of the folks because he understood everything. Yeah, he knew how to make the sausage.
And he knew what agent life was like. And he was, you know, he was one of those guys, he kicked everybody out of headquarters. He kicked everybody out of the laboratory, all the agents that had homesteaded there. Kicked everybody out, pushed them out to the fields and go work cases. Yeah.
Right? So he understood a lot of that, and he was pretty well liked as a director. But you've seen other directors. We've had judges. We've had lawyers. We've had prosecutors. We've had – so it varies. But I think the thought process over since Louis Freeh was that they want people who have a law background, which I disagree with because lawyers aren't necessarily investigators.
They're not necessarily intelligence people, and they're not necessarily – Folks who work in those capacities, right? You say more often than not, they're not. Right. So some people, you know, start out as cops, they go to law school, they become lawyers. But that, I think, is a smaller population.
But what you find, though, with the directors is they're the political appointee of the organization. Where the real power is, is with the deputy director. He's the most senior career FBI agent ever. Senior executive service. He's the guy. He'd be the top of those six that you were talking about? No, he was my boss. Okay. Right?
But there was a deputy director, and then there was an associate deputy director. The deputy is the boss of everybody. Gotcha. Right? The director, of course, is the head of the agency, but he's doing a lot of other stuff. Deputy runs the place. The associate deputy runs the business side of the bureau, effectively. Right? He runs all the administrative things, the logistical things.
And then there were the six of us. Okay. Yeah. So whenever there was something going on and they needed operations for something, whether it was national security for anything, science, technology, human resources, whatever, that's when they would come to us and say, hey, we need this or we have to have this. So we would deal with it.
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Chapter 6: How can the FBI regain public trust?
Chapter 7: What role does leadership play in the FBI's current challenges?
Really? Well, you elect to go into the SES. Okay. So it's just slightly different terms, for lack of a better word.
Right. You elect to go into the SES. You actually compete, promote into. Okay. We're in the GS scales that you have a lot more protection based upon the type of work it is. Especially after that one year mark. Yeah. Got a lot of protection. Yeah. But what I'm getting at is the... for the organization to make some hard shifts back toward the middle of things.
I don't think they're that far away from the middle right now, but the organization used to lean more conservative because of what it was. very procedurally driven, status quo, certain beliefs and values that sit a little bit more on the conservative side of things, if you're looking at that spectrum.
I think it's drifted off a little bit, especially when you hear things like, well, the FBI now has its own DEI programs, and now they're not enforcing. Now, this is anecdotal. I haven't seen it personally, but that they're not enforcing or administering policies as they once did with a certain maybe enthusiasm or strictness, and it's causing a decline in the quality of agents that are coming in.
Yeah, that checks out. If they're not holding to the standards, the standard you had is a slip. Yeah. And again, I haven't witnessed this, but it's been talked about and it's anecdotal, but a lot of people say it's happening. Of course, the FBI says it's not, but it's just...
I believe the people, it's the same thing when I hear stuff about the SEAL teams. I can go listen to what the public affairs officer is saying, or I can go listen to my buddies who are still in and they can give me the actual pulse. And they're telling you. I wait the pulse of those that are still in and active a little bit more than the public spokesperson.
And that's what I try to get the ground truth, right? These are people that are still close to the organization. I'm not. I stepped away from the organization. That was one of the things I wrote in my book was I know that there are people who still, are connected to the organization personally or professionally or economically. They make a living.
by working for the contractors that support the Bureau. Professionally, they may still be there, or they may be closely connected, or just personally, they're those people who are diehard FBI people who the FBI can do no wrong, which is part of one of its challenges, right? They don't self-assess well. But I just don't know what he's gonna be able to do. I know what he has to do.
He'd have to trim the top off. He's got to. And then because if you just say, well, let's bump the other folks up. Well, who do you think those people hired as their number two and three? All people of like mind. Yeah.
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