The FBI has been called a “criminal cabal” rife with corruption. It’s been said that its leaders need to be taken out in “handcuffs.” And its reputation, President Trump said, “in tatters.” The ongoing barrage of allegations has left current and former officials shaken, NPR reports. It also has fueled concerns that the bureau’s reputation with the public could begin to crumble. “We’re very concerned about the credibility of the FBI because we’re having to defend it on a daily basis and we’ve never had to do that before,” said former acting assistant director Chris Swecker. “There’s been plenty of controversies but never accusations that the FBI has become a political tool for one party or another, or one set of political beliefs or another.”
That is exactly the case that Trump, Republicans in Congress and their allies have been making for weeks — that “biased” investigators in the FBI and the Justice Department went soft on Hillary Clinton and cooked up a scurrilous case against Trump with the Russia investigation. Critics often are heard on Fox News. Host Jeanine Pirro told viewers “there is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice,” while Republican ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox that “it’s pretty appalling, the level of corruption we’re beginning to see in the FBI.” Swecker is asked whether the FBI had become a political tool. “And what hurts … is that in my conversations with neighbors and friends and family, there are some people who believe it,” he said. “If enough people believe it, it will have an impact on the agents on the street trying to conduct their investigation. They rely on people talking to them and believing in the credibility of the FBI.”