| | | quote | Originally posted by Raydar:I'm assuming you mean "the investigations"?
My first thought was, "This guy has got many millions (TV said "billions"?) of dollars. What would he gain by being involved in something like this?"
And then I remember Epstein.
On the face of it, it kind of pisses me off that the DHS made such a "show" of the raid (even approaching his house in boats, from the water.) But it's what they do, I suppose.
The FBI/DOJ certainly wasn't "discreet" about raiding a certain property in Palm Beach. |
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As a former government employee, I had the opportunity to work with FBI a few times where they asked for my support. One of the things you learn about the more overt groups like FBI, DHS, etc... is you get promoted based on your involvement in things. Any "operation" that involves someone who's well know, gets huge notoriety in the organization such that if you can put that on your annual appraisal, it's going to really help your chances of getting promoted. It depends of course where and with what organization. Some organizations are "grade in position," which means you can only ever be that grade... while others you can be promoted to a higher grade within an existing position. That goes for GS grades and Pay Banding. You also have the ability to get what was formerly known as a "step increase" via something like a Quality Step Increase (QSI) or Pay Band Increase.
Either way... when there's a high-profile operation, it gives almost everyone at the organization the opportunity to get involved... every group possible. So like in the Trump raid... the people coming across the water, how ridiculous was that? They totally didn't need that. But there's a separate group within the Miami FBI office off Redland road in Miramar that ONLY deals with small boats and engaging on the water. So of course they desperately asked to be involved. Same with the FBI agents that were guarding the gates, the ones in the helicopter, etc. It's all so that they can pad their employee performance appraisal form at the end of the year.
Think of it this way. You know whenever there's a press conference for "whatever" on the news? There's either a mayor, governor, or police chief making a speech to the news? You know how there's always like a whole bunch of people standing behind them on the podium, the overwhelming vast majority of whom will never actually say anything? These people are there for two reasons, 1 - They want to get on TV, 2 - Promotion potential to get "credit" for having been involved. They say it's to provide a "united front," but that's silliness.
Now, the fact that they're making DHS prominent likely has much more to do with the fact that the FBI has been getting a bad rap. DHS has far less involvement here, as most of the investigation is being done by the FBI field office working in conjunction with other offices that I'm not going to get into. But the narrative given to the media was likely that DHS was leading this. They're essentially becoming the "national police force" for the United States, but there is already the office of U.S. Federal Marshals Service, who literally do the work of the DOJ (and should have been on point for this). But again, it's all for posturing.
One thing is for sure... back in the day... and I mean literally just before Joe Biden, these organizations (even under Obama) always used some scrutiny. They didn't WANT to bring attention to the organizations and used only the force necessary to get the job / arrests done safely and properly. What may look like a "show of force" to the rest of us, is actually severe incompetence by the Biden administration and his appointment of directors and leadership at the director, deputy-director, and other SES levels by his administration. Even Obama and Trump ensured that big operations were done in a more subtle manner. What you see currently under the Biden administration is basically agencies operating on their own under irresponsible and even immature leadership where they are not considering the "optics" of the operation, so much as the inmates are running the prison so to speak.
Nearly every Federal organization is losing top talent (including myself) and being replaced by sheer incompetent idiots at all levels. The good people are counting the days until retirement, or... if young enough, have left. That goes for people both on the left and right of the political spectrum. It's really, really bad.
