> “I have considered myself to be a Republican my entire life,” albeit “a moderate Republican,” McCabe said. “I’ve voted for every Republican candidate for president in every election, except the 2016 one, in which I did not vote. And I chose not to vote because of the political nature of the work that we were engaged in.”
He’s Republican. So was Robert Mueller. And James Comey. And Christopher Wray. And John Durham of course.
We might not have overall numbers, but what are the odds that almost every high ranking FBI official you recognize is a Republican, but that the overall leadership structure doesn’t lean Republican?
It’s not a far-fetched concept. 90% of police chose Trump over Hillary. The people going into federal policing are not dissimilar from local police. Likely more educated and more urban than your average local officer, so I’d expect them to lean more Democrat than 10%, but it would be a stretch to believe that they dominate the org structure.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/words-mccabe-claims-firing-p...
According to a (likely poor quality) poll, when only considering Hillary and Trump in the poll, 92% of police officers chose Trump[1]. I believe it's fair to say that law enforcement overwhelmingly votes Republican, even if the poll is not great quality. 9 in 10? Maybe not. But likely far more Republican than your average voter. That was also in 2016, prior to the Defund the Police movement which would likely bump those numbers up.
That was general law enforcement, but FBI is law enforcement. Given the average FBI agent is probably more educated and urban than the average LEO, their numbers are likely slightly more Democrat, but it's reasonable to believe it would still lean Republican.
65% of FBI's supervisory positions were male, and 78% white[2]. As we know, white male demographics skew Republican at 58%[3]. The total FBI workforce is 75% white, 56% male. Looking at demographics, we'd expect the organization to be more Republican than average.
As mentioned previously, 16 top officials were given the director/acting director title and only 1 of those was a Democrat. If top officials are at all representative of the political beliefs of the organization on average (it's a fair belief, as those top officials typically spent decades climbing the org), picking Republicans that many times would mean either a very rare coin flip, or the numbers skew Republican.
The FBI has spent most of its resources throughout history targeting left-wing organizations a la COINTELPRO. This is still the case over the past decade.[4]
At the same time Peter Strzok was texting about stopping Trump, another agent shared her experience as "The FBI is Trumpland" and that Clinton is "the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel," and that "the reason why they're leaking is they're pro-Trump."
All of this gets overlooked by right-wing media and instead they focus on right-wingers getting investigated and prosecuted. When--I dunno--maybe it's just Republican politicians are more criminal?
Without having actual party affiliation polls of the FBI, I think it's reasonable to look at the information we do have and say if we were to guess, the organization probably leans Republican.
[1] https://www.policemag.com/342098/the-2016-police-presidentia... [2] https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2020/02/fbi-has-failed-mov... [3] https://news.virginia.edu/content/what-exit-polls-are-tellin... [4] https://rightsanddissent.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Stil...
Ok, first sentence sounds like we're on the same page. The second sentence sounds like you're very primed to have a political argument but I'm not sure with who. Nothing about the FBI leaning Republican is incompatible with my stance that the FBI is a monstrously large, unmanageable organization that centralizes federal law enforcement power into the unelected hands of supervisory bureaucrats.
Number of directors is irrelevant. Number of terms/years of party control is.
Since 1935, 13 of 23 Presidential terms were Democrats.
Presidents don’t determine the type of people who join the FBI, stay for decades, and work themselves into leadership positions. Presidents just appoint one of these individuals as director.
This would be like believing city police are mostly Democrat because the mayors have been mostly Democrat. Or the same of blue state state-level police.
None of this is factual or living in the real world, it’s simply adhering to an unsupported opinion because it reinforces your feelings.
The President's nominee doesn't have to be from existing rank-and-file FBI employees, Special Agents or otherwise.