Monday was a sad day for our democracy and a dark day for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence was a politically sensitive operation that would have tested the FBI’s reputation for fairness and impartiality in the best of circumstances. But the bureau’s behavior since Mr. Trump came onto the political scene has already left its reputation in tatters.
There is a small bright spot: Whistleblowers are coming forth from within the FBI. Last month the public learned of two such cases via letters from lawmakers. On July 25 Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray that he had received credible whistleblower reports attesting to FBI manipulation of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Rep. Jim Jordan wrote to Mr. Wray two days later that whistleblowers had approached him about FBI efforts at “artificially padding domestic terrorism data.”
The alleged conduct is dispiriting, but we can take heart that whistleblowers are coming forward. No one did so during Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign’s purported ties with Russia. Insiders told me this silence resulted in part from the nature of the investigation: It was a “headquarters special” in which only a handful of people had the full picture. Staff simply assumed the headquarters clique “must have had more.” It didn’t.
Now FBI insiders are taking their concerns to lawmakers. Mr. Grassley named two high-ranking...
CYBERJAYA, April 15 — The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is investigating an individual suspected of spreading false news that Malaysia supplied 329,000 barrels of diese...