An FBI story

Editor in chief’s note: WORLD’s three products—magazine, website, and podcast—have 16 full-time reporters or editors and 40 part-time and occasional writers. All are Christians and most are graduates of our World Journalism Institute. All have interesting backgrounds, but our latest addition has one that particularly raises eyebrows: In March Jim Long retired from the FBI after 20 years of service. He will head up our Caleb Team, devoted to investigative journalism that tells the truth about purported “giants in the land” and encourages battlers against evil. This article introduces him to WORLD readers. —Marvin Olasky

The views and opinions expressed below are strictly those of the author and not of the FBI or any other federal agency.

“Take this,” Mike said, as he clicked a cheap government pen and rotated a yellow legal pad in my direction.

We were sitting on a wiretap in an organized crime case and had some downtime. “I want you to take this pen and make as many dots on this page as you can.”

Mike was my training agent. He was a 6-foot-4, 280-pound version of Burt Reynolds. He was a former college quarterback, with nearly 30 years of FBI experience. I said, “Yes sir,” and began tapping the paper like a drooling toddler beating down big, colored Fisher-Price plastic nails with a play hammer.

Meanwhile, Mike talked about a car chase he had years ago with a dangerous fugitive. It came to an end with their cars stopped on the side of a rural Southern highway. At night, with no backup, Mike opened his car door and drew his weapon. He commanded the bad guy to come out with his hands up and surrender.

Nothing.

“Now what?” Mike looked at the gap between his car and the bad guy’s bumper. “Should work.”

With his left arm pointing his revolver at the subject, Mike reached into his car with his right and shifted the gear into “Drive.” As his car jolted the bad guy’s car, it gave Mike just the element of surprise and distraction he needed to grab him, handcuff him, and wait for the cavalry to arrive.

We were trained that our highest duty was not to put people in jail, but to find the truth. The bureau reminded us, ‘It’s just as important to exonerate the innocent, as it is to convict the guilty.’

“There’s not a better sound in the world than hearing the sirens of other agents coming your way when you’re alone with a bad guy,” Mike said.

“Cool story,” I said, wondering all the while, How many dots does he want me to make?

But Mike wasn’t finished. “Funny thing is, Jim, I got OPRed for that—‘Misuse of Government Property.’”

“What?” (OPR stands for Office of Professional Responsibility.)

“Yep, the bureau said our government vehicles are ‘not issued for that purpose.’”

“Really?”

“Whatever you do, Jim, you never lie to OPR. An FBI agent never lies! If OPR asks you, ‘Did you do that?’ you tell the truth. Admit it. Own up to it without hesitation. Say, ‘Yes I did.’”

Mike joked, “You can say, ‘Yes I did—was that wrong?’ Example: ‘Did you steal that kilo of heroin from the Evidence Room?’ ‘Yes, was that wrong?’ Or you can answer, ‘Yes, I did. I need help’—but don’t ever lie. FBI agents don’t lie.”

“Got it. Are these enough dots?” I said, changing the subject.

“Oh … yeah. Now take your pen and circle three or four of those dots.”

My page now had hundreds of dots, but I followed Mike’s instructions, eager to see where this was leading.

“OK, Jim, you see—each of those dots represents criminals, criminal activities, and even criminal organizations that are active 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. We can’t cover them all and never will. What you circled is what we can cover at any given moment.”

He closed with these words: “I know you just came out of Quantico full of vigor and optimism—ready to tackle the world—but we can’t do it all. You have to accept that. You have to work smart—choose your targets wisely. You can’t be discouraged—ever.”

That was 20 years ago, at the beginning of my career as an FBI special agent. For over two decades, I was honored to serve with the best men and women in the country—to take those dots off paper.

What a ride!

I can still see the jury framed by the mahogany walls of the federal courtroom when it handed up a guilty verdict for Chi Mak—a Chinese spy who tried to pass on data that would have compromised U.S. naval technology.

I can still hear the voice of a little girl on an emergency wiretap telling mommy and daddy she wanted a McDonald’s hamburger after the kidnappers released her, then high-fiving another agent as FBI SWAT took down the van with her kidnappers.

I can still taste the bitter coffee a grateful mother gave me as I stood in front of a meth house we had just shut down in her neighborhood—java made sweeter by her exclaiming, “My kids can ride their bikes again!” The motorcycle gang tied to the meth house would no longer be riding Harleys on the sidewalks.

I can still smell the mixture of stale air and jet fuel as I sat in economy, reading a note from the pilot. It informed me that before departure five “Middle Eastern” men were overheard talking about taking over the aircraft midflight. In the understatement of the year, he said, “I thought you should know.”

Nothing came of that, but I can still feel my heart pound while loading rifled slugs in my shotgun and putting on body armor in an undercover surveillance car, as my team leader blared on the radio: The takeover bank robbery suspects we’re following have ski masks and loaded what appeared to be shoulder weapons in the trunk of their car. We have movement.

We followed them for hours. No bank stops. Then fresh intel confirmed: no robbery. Good deal. No shootout today.

There was laughter too.

One of my favorites: a gangbanger we wanted for a low-level credit card fraud offense. We did our “knock and announce.” (“FBI! We have a warrant. Open the door.”) He cracked it open and blurted, “Is this about that cocaine that came here yesterday?”

“Well … now it is.”

Sometimes dots take themselves off the paper.

Two decades of raids, operations, reports, affidavits, late nights, overnights, travel, trials, testimony, and takedowns. Together, we scooped up terrorists, spies, and criminals of all flavors.

What’s unclear for me is how the current round of FBI controversies will damage the bureau’s credibility.

Hillary. Russians. Trump. McCabe. Comey. Like many of my FBI peers on the front lines, we were too busy to track those stories. Too many dots to cover. All the bad press was just more noise—another layer of dots for contention.

We were trained that our highest duty was not to put people in jail, but to find the truth. The bureau reminded us, “It’s just as important to exonerate the innocent, as it is to convict the guilty.”

At the field level, I never witnessed a case of personal politics compromising the bureau’s mission. The noise up top, from within and without the FBI, was just that. Noise. Distraction.

Field agents and support staff are too busy covering dots. But sometimes the FBI fails. We missed some dots. We removed some and you never knew it.

When the FBI fails, the inevitable questions should come: What did FBI agents know? When did they know it? What did they do about it?

In the bureau, agents recognize that our strength lies at the bottom, not the top. Yet, despite their fortitude, the bureau is approaching a crisis of morale. Seasoned agents are working under a management system that is increasingly promoting inexperienced, arrogant, and even narcissistic persons. Up top, hard-earned bureau credibility has been compromised by grown men trading taunting tweets and making conclusory statements on both sides about a firing being a “war on the FBI” or a “victory for democracy.”

The rank-and-file FBI gets used to some bad press, but when its own leadership begins cashing in bureau chips earned by the hard work and even the blood of men and women before them—then it gets personal. When petty middle managers take the mask off and become retributive as their narcissist supply is threatened, it becomes harder to call it “the greatest job in the world.”

This may be the real “war on the FBI”—the war of sin that plagues us all. In that war, truth is often a casualty.

As an agent and in every other area in my life, I learned the wisdom of simply staying calm and stating the facts. Soft words can break bones. Truth has an inherent power.

Flipping the dot metaphor, you can view each fact you gather as a dot. As an investigator, you gather the dots, then let the trier of fact connect the dots. If the truth is on your side, don’t yell.

As a former FBI profiler, lawyer, and seminary graduate, my Biblical faith has shown me how we try to cover up our core of selfishness. I see that in criminals, in the people who arrest them, in myself.

During my time with the bureau, I worked with many Christians. We often said what we did was “a calling, not a job.” Like so many of my peers, I worked many late nights alone in a tiny office cubicle drafting affidavits for wiretaps, search warrants, and arrests.

As if still surrounded by gray-fabric-lined cubicle walls and working under flickering fluorescent bulbs, I can see the blurred images of yellow sticky notes on drafts of my probable cause section:

“Overstating the evidence?”

“Misleading the Court?”

“Is this informant meet documented?”

“Check corruption allegations on detective who authored this report?”

If it was dubious, it had to go. I was swearing before a magistrate, but my oath was before God.

The FBI chapter of my life is over now. I can now tear from the legal pad that yellow page filled with dots—minus a few. A fresh page emerges.

After spending 20 years looking at the dots—the worst of sinful human behavior—I often have to remind myself that God made this world good. The legal pad has lots of dots, but do not fear them—and never miss the yellow.