Buh Bye to Another Democratic Operative at the FBI

Michael Feinberg, friend of Peter Strzok, quit the bureau before being forced to spill the beans on the nature of his work and friendship with the disgraced Comey lackey.

In yet another example of what the new leadership at the Federal Bureau of Investigation is up against, Michael Feinberg, a self-proclaimed intelligence expert at the bureau, resigned in May. Feinberg—as is the fashion for FBI employees forced out after being exposed as political hacks rather than the diligent crime fighters they purport to be—penned a sanctimonious screed explaining why big bad Kash and Dan are responsible for his decision to quit.

Writing for Lawfare, the Brookings Institution’s appropriately named repository for Trump foes, Feinberg claimed he was targeted due to his longtime friendship with Peter Strzok. Lover of Lisa Page and hater of Donald Trump, Strzok took a lead role in concocting the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax in 2016, which included his ambush of General Michael Flynn in the White House in January 2017. He, along with Page, also served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators.

Strzok was fired in 2018 over incriminating text messages exposing his anti-Trump bias but he was rewarded with a $1.2 million lawsuit settlement by former Attorney General Merrick Garland last year.

Feinberg said he had been informed that Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, wanted him out despite planning for a promotion at the time. “I was in the midst of preparing for a potential move to Washington, D.C. to take on a new position at FBI headquarters. But, it turned out, I had made a terrible mistake: I had remained friends with someone who had appeared on Kash Patel’s enemies list,” Feinberg, referring to Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, wrote on July 3. “I faced a choice: get demoted or resign.”

While Feinberg insisted his ongoing friendship with Strzok revolved around similar (poor) taste in music—”most of our conversations since he left the Bureau have involved debating the relative merits of New Order versus Joy Division”—one little nugget possibly revealed the truth behind his departure: Feinberg worked with Strzok in the “FBI’s Counterintelligence Division roughly a decade ago.”

If by “roughly” Feinberg meant 2016 and 2017, the timeline would place Feinberg at the nerve center of the FBI’s successful effort to spy on Trump and his campaign. In fact, a New York Times article in June reported that Strzok and Feinberg “worked together for years in the counterintelligence division.”

Further, Feinberg possibly could have worked on the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server; Strzok also took the lead in that inquiry, going so far as to change language in Jim Comey’s public statement to downplay Clinton’s handling of government records.

Clinton, of course, faced no charges.

But Bongino, and the public, may never know whether Feinberg participated in either matter, or to what extent. Faced with a request to sit for a polygraph test about the nature of his “friendship” with Strzok, Feinberg alleged, he immediately resigned. (The FBI also is using polygraphs to determine the source of leaks to the media.) Raising suspicions Feinberg has something to hide, he resigned five years before he was eligible for a pension—a financial boon most government employees live and die for—and while expecting his first child.

“I would be expected to grovel, beg forgiveness, and pledge loyalty as part of the FBI’s cultural revolution brought about by Patel and Bongino’s accession to the highest echelons of American law enforcement and intelligence,” Feinberg speculated as to what the polygraph exercise would entail.

Like those before him—think ex-New York FBI chief James Dennehy—Feinberg’s parting shot only confirmed suspicions of his political leanings. Feinberg described the climate at the new FBI as “undeniably toxic” amid the removal of senior officials and questioned new priorities, such as immigration enforcement, “that did not comfort most on-board personnel.”

Feinberg’s resignation letter betrayed more partisanship.

Earlier this year the ranks of our senior executives were decimated by forced retirements, and many others were willing to take their places without voicing concern or dissent. The Department of Justice has been ordered to open cases on individuals solely for having the temerity to say that the 2020 election was not stolen, or for having carried out their lawful duties as state level prosecutors; few people have pushed back. We sacrificed the names of every Special Agent who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, and an entire public corruption squad in our nation’s capital was disbanded for having worked on a related matter. Within our own field office, we shirked our national security obligations in order to move personnel to immigration task forces; our area of responsibility does not actually have a significant population of illegal immigrants, but our leaders wanted press release-ready roundups, so we pulled people from congressionally mandated counterterrorism and counterintelligence duties. I could go on.

Feinberg now has a permanent gig at Lawfare. He recently opened an account on Bluesky, the butthurt Democratic Party alternative to X, where he is posting anti-Trump administration material:

But establishment FBI/DOJ bootlickers in the media want the public to believe Patel and Bongino, not Feinberg and his ilk, represent a threat to national security. A histrionic editorial in the New York Times—which unflinchingly peddled every FBI-concocted political operation from Russiagate and the Whitmer fednapping to the January 6 “insurrection”—warns Americans are “less safe” under the new leadership.

Despite the FBI’s near-singular focus on political investigations targeting Trump and his supporters for a decade, the Times editorial board claims “Mr. Trump’s politicization of the F.B.I. has left it less able to combat terrorism, foreign espionage, biosecurity threats, organized crime, online scams, white-collar crime, drug trafficking and more.”

The Times laughably insists Joe Biden—the man who unleashed the FBI on J6ers for daring to protest the 2020 election results—”largely respected the bureau’s autonomy.” Feinberg, the Times continued, resigned over his friendship with Strzok “who had sent a text message disparaging Mr. Trump.”

Only one text message, eh NYT?

Bongino responded on X, touting the bureau’s achievements on crime, immigration, and foreign spy rings. “[Even] though it’s an opinion piece, they should at least attempt to insert reality into it.”

There was, however, a bit of reality in the editorial as the Times confirmed at least 650 FBI employees have filed for early retirement so far.

That’s a good start. And the ongoing purge of political operatives such as Feinberg and Dennehy should further cleanse the ranks of those responsible for trashing the FBI’s reputation. It is a formidable and thankless task but a necessary one as the country continues to face real threats here and abroad—threats the Feinberg-era FBI ignored in exchange for partisan gratification.