As Capitol Hill Hearings Begin, 'Legend' Agent Says FBI Needs 'Serious Shakeup'

Investigations into Justice Department bias against conservatives begin in the U.S. House Thursday.

Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan's Weaponization of Government Committee has the FBI in its crosshairs.

The author of a new book on the FBI's downfall writes that the bureau has become a "threat to democracy."

Retired Agent Thomas Baker has been called a "legend" at the bureau. Baker was the first agent on the scene when President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, and he worked under many different FBI directors over his 33-year career.

With his book, The Fall of the FBI, Baker is one of the most senior FBI figures to call for reform of the agency.

"The biggest factor, what it all traces back to, is the change in culture that began with Robert Mueller," Baker told CBN News.

He says the beginning of the fall of the FBI can be pegged to a specific moment in time. It came 3 days after 9/11. "In those 3 days, the FBI had managed to identify all nineteen 9/11 hijackers, their associates, and their connections to al Qaeda," Baker said.

It was remarkable police work, and FBI Director Robert Mueller was expecting to hear praise when he informed President George W. Bush.

Instead, Bush dismissively said to him, "'I don't care about any of that. I just want to know how you're going to prevent the next one.' Mueller was humiliated. He resolved after that encounter to change the FBI from a police organization to a domestic intelligence agency."

Then, just weeks later, Congress passed the USA/Patriot Act. The Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA – tools intended to fight terrorism – would be used against American citizens. 

Conservatives, pro-life Christians, and even school parents have become targets of the FBI.

Jordan says he has been contacted by "dozens" of  FBI whistleblowers and is vowing to expose FBI corruption. 

"We had a Department of Justice that treated moms and dads as terrorists; you got the FBI that paid Twitter not one, not two, but three million dollars to censor conservative viewpoints. 2020, they suppress the Hunter Biden story. It's been weaponized against the very people they're supposed to serve," Jordan said.

A Gallup poll last year found that almost 80 percent of Democrats had a favorable view of the FBI. Yet among Republicans, it was less than 30 percent. Baker says the FBI has become a threat to all Americans.

He cautioned, 'What's been happening to conservatives in the last couple of years could just as easily happen to liberals, and sincere Democrats who are concerned about civil rights or civil liberties should definitely unite with Republicans in trying to reform the FBI."

The out-of-control domestic intelligence agency set in motion by Robert Mueller was, according to Baker, brought to a head by James Comey, who Baker calls the worst FBI director in history.

"A lot of the employees liked Comey because he was very easy on people. But it turns out he was totally detached and a lot of bad stuff was allowed to happen that he should have spoken up about."

Comey would be fired, as were the other figures in the Russian collusion scandal, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strozk. 

"And the bureau executives keep saying, 'Well, all the rotten apples, they're gone.' But they still have not looked at the fundamental problem. Why does this keep happening? And what needs to happen is the culture needs to be changed," Baker insisted. He says the FBI needs a serious shakeup, but he's not at all confident that will happen."

Far from cutting back, the FBI, the federal government, is going forward with plans for a new FBI headquarters that will be twice the size of the Pentagon.