Andrew Weissmann on Fired Officials: For the People in the FBI, This Is Not a Temporary Job, ‘This Is Their Career’

RUSH EXCERPT:
WEISSMANN: "So on the Apolitical front, it’s worth noting something Chris said, the people who go into the FBI, this is not a temporary job. That’s true for the agents, the analysts, the lawyers, the. Staff who are there. This is their career. When I remember when I first. Got to The FBI as the general counsel and I was asking at various meetings, like how long people had been there, and you got the answer 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years. What does that mean? Those are people who are career people who have served under multiple administrations, Republican and Democrat. They do not care. They are there to do a job. They develop expertise. They develop historical information and background. They can do something, which is when some new issue comes up, they can immediately tell you how it is different than or been handled before. And so you’re not starting from scratch. And that is those are the kinds of people you want there. That is what makes you better. That is what makes an organization better for the people who are career people. This culture of fear and intimidation is one where you’re going to have people really thinking about one. Do they even want to be at the FBI? Do they want to even go into the FBI? If they know that they can’t really count on having a career there? If they make a sort of, quote, false move, which is just on a case that the director later thinks is one that should have been brought, even though they had no choice in the matter. And so it really is going to take enormous fortitude on the part of agents. And just to be clear, we saw a lot of that when Emil Bove was seeking to have a list of thousands of agents put together, and the acting director, driscoll was pushing back, saying that there’s no reason for them to have their names listed for adverse personnel action. And, you know, there are a lot of agents and special agents in charge around the country who were part of that effort to push back and to uphold the rule of law at our institutions. But the bottom line here is we are less safe because of this. This is a this is a law enforcement and intelligence operation that is now far less effective because you’re getting rid of these people for no good reason."