J. Gary DiLaura Op-Ed: An Open Letter to FBI Director Kash Patel
Retired FBI Special Agent says politics replaced policing at the Bureau, and Kash Patel must change that quickly.
LUTHMANN NOTE: This isn’t nostalgia—it’s an indictment. J. Gary DiLaura exposes what the modern FBI doesn’t want to admit: a law-enforcement agency that forgot how to enforce the law. Arrests create leverage. Interviews create informants. Informants solve crimes. Strip that away, and you’re left with politics, process crimes, and staged photo ops masquerading as justice. An FBI that doesn’t arrest criminals isn’t elite—it’s ornamental. J. Edgar Hoover understood this. Street work forged judgment, courage, and credibility. Desk work breeds arrogance and error. If today’s agents can’t execute a warrant, interview a suspect, or testify cleanly, they’re not investigators. They’re liabilities wearing badges. This piece- a J Gary DiLaura Op-ED – first appeared at therightsidejgarydilaura.com.
By J. Gary DiLaura
Dear FBI Director Kash Patel,
Please don’t take this column as a wish for you to fail. On the contrary, I want you to succeed …but what you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot and NOT making the FBI great again. Do you want to know why …how? Well, just answer this simple question. “What made the FBI great, the very best law enforcement Agency in the world, bar none?” The answer …CRIME FIGHTING …and all that it involves. It is MUCH, much more than finding the bad guy, arresting him, and moving on. FBI Agents don’t even do THAT!
It was so important that Mueller and then, the “BIG Mistake”, Comey moved in every way to disregard real crimes …Title 18 USC Crimes …crimes like bank robbery, escape federal prisoners, UFAP (I’ll bet you don’t even know what that is), interstate thefts, kidnapping, interstate prostitution, Hobbs Act, and many more. Those were the cases that made FBI Agents what we were…the best there was! Instead, they used terrorism, hunter-gatherer, counter terrorism, an oxymoron. To make them too busy to bother with bank robberies…or interstate car thefts…or fugitive cases.
When I was sworn in at the Old Post Office, the FBI was responsible for 180 Title 18 violations. Hoover believed that the public was instrumental in solving those cases, so he selected 15 violations he considered high-profile and wanted the FBI on the front pages of every newspaper around… showing a bad guy, like Comey, in cuffs with an Agent on each side. Making those cases the backbone of the FBI. Under Hoover, most of us broke our backs to make that “BIG” case.
The idea, Director, is to solve crimes, make arrests, testify in court on the evidence, secure convictions, and obtain new informants! The best way is to ask the subject …you would be surprised at how successful that is…if you indict, then bench warrant …you kill that very important act. AND … you kill that opportunity to develop sources!!! Two BIG MISTAKES and it’s all legal as can be!!! Ask any of today’s Agents how many arrests they made …last week…last month, last year…and don’t be surprised when they ALL say…well…NONE, NONE, and NONE! Go ahead and ask Strzok or McCabe or Baker…IN THEIR ENTIRE FREAKING CAREERS …how many and hear the answer, “I was doing counter intel” …then ask how many arrests he made doing THAT … how many informants, none! If those scoundrels spent as much time putting criminals in jail as they spent trying to direct a Presidential Election and overthrow the Constitutional Republic (that’s the Constitution, for the benefit of those scoundrels, it’s called Treason) by putting Trump in jail…they could have been real FBI Agents…instead of criminals.
I never had a single year where I had no arrests …no convictions!
In my first office, Columbia, SC, for “orientation”, Charleston RA for 13 months, I solved a homicide by lifting prints (nobody else believed it would yield anything, and it yielded a palm print of the killer). That was my first 30 days. In the next 13 months, three of us teamed up and arrested over 200…that’s correct …200 fugitive deserters and escape federal prisoners. I arrested a bank robber by outguessing his escape route with a little arithmetic! My partner, Dennis Wick, and I nailed him with two hostages, a shotgun, and $18,000. I extracted him with a choke hold, and he outweighed me by 100 pounds!! That works…that’s why it must be trained and used!!
With another Agent, Ray, on late duty, we rescued a 5-year-old little girl, Tondalaya Jones, front page news on all three TV stations, as well as most newspapers. Kidnapped from Brooklyn, she jumped into my arms and said, “Please don’t let me go! I’ll never forget how that made me feel!
But the BIGGEST case, as a rookie, was a cold case, an armed robbery of a Bronx, NY Deli where a stick-up guy, who was wanted all over the South, unknown to me that he was listed as an IO Fugitive… shot it out with a NY uniform officer who died from his wounds. IO fugitives are so dangerous that First Office Agents are not allowed to work them. My partner Dennis was shot point blank with a 45 as was his partner in their second office (both survived, thank God) …however …the SAC, Roland Trent, was so happy with my work he allowed me to keep the case…! Unknown to me, that was a big deal as Director Hoover called the SAC when we got him…the IO Fugitive went for a gun, and the fight was on…he and I fought …he lost. Director Hoover followed ALL police killings and didn’t believe this case would ever be solved …it was a year old.
So …my second office was the NYO. Fifteen Agents report to the NYO every Monday, and ALL 15 are sent for orientation on how to stay alive in the Big Apple! ADIC John Malone sent 14 Agents to the Security Squads and me to the Truck Squad, John Gotti’s Crew. Malone dismissed all 14 and asked me to stay. He then had his secretary set up a three-way call with the speaker, John Malone, me, and Director Hoover.
The Director wanted to know how I did it. I said I developed, on a totally unrelated case, an informant, and I helped him out of a jam, and he repaid me by helping me solve an armed robbery, police killing by an IO Fugitive! A little legwork, record checks, NCIC, and the IO flyers. And the photo spread in NYO. I really didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but I was wrong. HE, the Director, said he follows all police killings, but never had a first office Agent that successful! He went on, a 25-year Agent dreams about arresting a bank robber, rescuing a kidnap victim …and you scored five major cases. He told Malone to put me on the BEST squad in the FBI, and he did! Just a side note …four days on the Truck Squad, the squad hit a John Gotti drop in the Bronx! While covering the front door with a senior Agent, I spotted a very suspicious 26’ rental overloaded, scoping out the drop, and I hollered to John to get help as I tried to stop him. He tried to run me down and took off. I had the car keys and gave chase. He bailed after a few blocks and took a shot at me. I returned fire but didn’t report it. An Agent ran 3-4 blocks from the drop and hollered for me to stop chasing…so I did! He said we have rules about foot chases … “WE DON’T DO IT; YOU’LL PROBABLY GET SHOT!”
Director Patel, if you do not retrieve ALL those Title 18 USC, Criminal Violations, you will NEVER be successful. We, FBI Agents, NEED that on-the-job training. Science has advanced so much that you can track a vehicle from New York to California via satellite, show a picture of a suspect exiting a house in Florida to the victim before he gets into the car, and more.
You have no idea how important what I am telling you is. These Agents have not worked criminal cases in 25 f—n years. How can they know how to arrest somebody …they don’t know how to draw up an arrest warrant, don’t know how to get a search warrant…don’t know how to execute a search warrant. Many stopped carrying!
Mar-a-Lago is the perfect example. They have no idea what the Laws say, what the Federal Rules of Criminal procedure, Rule 41, require…the subject CAN witness the search, CAN video (as long as he’s not intrusive), you MUST provide a “detailed” inventory to the subject BEFORE you leave …you MAY not rearrange top secret papers or ANY evidence to create a stronger appearance for a photo op …THAT’S TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE … and PHOTOGRAPH the freaking top secret papers (what a great f—n idea) …that is several felonies, instant removal!
IDIOTS …who the hell was in charge? I participated in more search warrants than you can imagine …the Truck Squad handled about 275 -300 truck hijackings per year, and we solved about 60% …do the math …we inventoried all that we recovered.
On the BR Squad, we handled 500 BRs per year. That’s two every working day. We handled and solved 60%, that’s 300 cases, which was more than LA had… along with BR fugitives from other offices, kidnappings, and skyjackings, the BR squad also handled the BLA …Doc Coulson handled most of that!
When I transferred to Buffalo, I was asked by ASAC John Shanley, who showed me my personnel file and noted, “I made 57 bank robbery arrests last year alone… is that correct?” I said I didn’t know exactly how many I had, but I would have guessed there were more. He replied that it is more than the entire Buffalo Division made in the last two years combined. He also asked about several shootings, noting the last shooting was last Thursday…is that true? Yes, he was a fugitive bank robber out of LA and was very dangerous … he knocked my partner out, was armed, and was a light heavyweight contender some years ago. He took a hostage after a foot chase. I was shot at during the chase when I ran past the “boys” who are Harlem deadbeats, doing what Harlem Hoods do. The chase came to a stop when he raised a gun to fire… I shot first, causing him to take cover. That’s when he ran upstairs and took a 12-year-old little girl hostage. That’s when my partner showed up, and we rushed him. I grabbed the girl, and my partner grabbed the subject, and down the stairs they went! After a struggle…fight…I knocked him out with a choke hold! That was my last week in the Apple!! The Shooting Review Board ruled the shooting justified.
There was a wealth of knowledge…just from working cases! My partner and I solved BRs every way possible …forensic, photos, we handled bombing cases, where one detonated in the bank…no injuries…
We surveilled dozens of trucks being hijacked and several bank robberies… witnessing the robberies and some running gunfights.
Ask current Agents how many of them testified as a witness to a robbery!
That’s another issue …the FBI Director should NOT be involved with the investigation …doing any interviews… releasing 3500 material or any other evidence…sorry… just to satisfy the freaking press? Unless you want to get subpoenaed to testify, tying you up for days …weeks.
Director, please address all violations and begin training. Dump as many do nothing Agents, just look at their files, it’s all there, and replace them with retired SOG, Seal, Delta, Rangers. They are all well-trained. They just need to learn the law…law is common sense.
The only way you will get to interview any of those Democraps is to get Magistrate arrest warrants and Search warrants for documents that show evidence of guilt, computers, etc. Arrest the bastards, cuff them. I wrote to you that we should NOT go to the Grand Jury.
You do NOT want to go to a preliminary hearing. If my memory serves me correctly, the procedure a good AUSA and Agent want is a Magistrate Warrant to arrest and search, followed by a prosecutor filing an Information by passing the Grand Jury. The case Agent presents and eliminates the preliminary hearing; hearsay testimony is allowed. No evidence unless it’s for PC…that’s all that is necessary! If we had disclosed what evidence we found …before 3500 material was provided to the defense, we would have been fired! It compromises the case …no early releases to scoundrels…wait until trial! Then and only then … required by law, at trial …stop the transparency BULLSHIT, follow the damn laws, and to hell with politics when it comes to criminals, crimes, and evidence! They broke the laws …not us…they deserve what the law provides …nothing more and nothing less …go by that rule and you will stay out of trouble! If you indict and get a Bench warrant, you will NEVER solve shit! The idea, geniuses, is to “get the subject’s side, wink…wink…get it… or are you (whoever decided to indict Comey) …just plain dumb? How’d that go? What did he have to say? Once you indict, you won’t get to first base with the Subject …you won’t even get to talk to him/her!! You see…subject interviews are the most important part of a good, smart Agent…but none of you know that because YOU DON’T DO CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS! The idea is to work the interviews so you get them thinking… the young ones, who were led around by the nose (like Huma), do NOT want felony convictions on their resumes! Comey is a wimp. Without lawyers following him around, he would have rolled completely over… too late now! You need help. Look how fast he rolled on admitting the “Steele Dossier is seditious and unverified”…President Trump got a confession by “interviewing” Comey, and Comey is too dumb to realize it! President Trump was so surprised, he didn’t know what to say next, BUT he got the most IMPORTANT part of that interview…Comey signed the Affidavits for the search warrants and KNEW it was a FRAUD! A good question would have been, “Then why did you and the others sign the warrants?”?!
Director Hoover became Director and began firing do-nothing agents, replacing them with college-educated candidates with fighting skills, and it worked. Times have changed, and we need “that” and not less…more…go after former, military-trained… SOG, Seals, Delta, Rangers …tough, well-trained, smart…just teach them the laws! They already know how to shoot and fight; just teach them the laws and provide the Criminal Violations they must have to stay sharp. Interviewing arrested Criminals is valuable for developing informants, solving cases, and dealing with the public.
For 25 years, the FBI has lost those skills … gone! Many Agents do not carry their guns…that was a fireable mistake for an Agent! They don’t work CRIMINAL CASES, so how the hell are they going to learn the …How To?! That is critical to making a good investigator… a great investigator! The biggest, BEST, violations to get sharp and stay sharp are Fugitives and Bank Robberies…those are “MUST HAVE”.
Thank you for your time and your service.
Yours in Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,
J. Gary DiLaura, FBI Special Agent (Ret.)
