It’s time to talk about the FBI I have known and worked with for almost 30 years. These are the men and women who take an oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States, protect the public from all enemies foreign and domestic and do so with honesty, integrity and a dedication to justice. In the past 30 years I have worked with dozens of agents, on hundreds of cases. These people matter to the public safety in our community, in the nation, and they are a shining beacon of what the rule of law means throughout the developing world.
Locally, here in Alaska, our FBI enjoys a tremendous working relationship with state and local public safety. They not only respond 24/7 to public safety emergencies, they work carefully and meticulously on long-term investigations. They partner with other agencies and public safety officers to fight violent crime, crimes against children, white-collar frauds, environmental crime, cyber intrusions and other forms of identity theft and the broadest array of cases of any federal agency. They are also deeply engaged in the top priority of fighting terrorism and foreign threats to our country and its institutions. And, they do so always with the knowledge that integrity, honesty and dedication to the rule of law is central to any investigation and prosecution.
To illustrate the latter, it is important to remember that every time an agent swears out a warrant or testifies in court, they raise their right hands and take an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Those oaths are not just words; they are meaningful to each agent’s career. Any finding that an agent has been knowingly or recklessly untruthful is investigated by the FBI office of professional responsibility and can mean an end to an agent’s career. The agents I have known and worked with all take their obligation to truth and honesty as a trust and a central duty. I have sat in my former office as an assistant U.S. attorney, on more than one occasion at midnight, going line by line through a warrant application, checking each word and sentence against the gathered evidence and witness statements to make sure that everything written was completely accurate. I have done the same time and again with draft indictments. Read more at the Anchorage Daily News.
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