The End of the FBI—in One Act

The FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. Alex Brandon/AP

SCENE: An office at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One side of it is a glass window through which other offices can be seen. On the wall are a collection of citations for meritorious service. There is a plant in the corner. It needs watering. On the desk are framed photos of a smiling middle-aged woman hiking a mountain trail and of identical twin girls of high school age in front of a sailboat. In walks Special Agent HENRY DOBSON. He’s 50-ish, with a square and solid build. His salt-and-pepper hair is thinning. He’s grinning. He sits at the desk and straightens the framed photos. He picks up the phone and dials.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Shelly, Hank. They just closed the bank. It’s done. After five years. Five fuckin’ years. He’s pleading. The Brazilians have it wrapped up. Nine years, no wiggle. Pretty good, right? Now on to the next scumbag...What? C’mon, you can’t be serious. That’s not what I do...No, no, no...What do I know about street patrols?...This is nuts—.

A YOUNG AGENT pokes her head in the office and tosses DOBSON a sealed manila envelope.

YOUNG AGENT: Someone dropped this off for you.

DOBSON: Who?

YOUNG AGENT: Didn’t say. Woman. Lots of jewelry. Big sunglasses. Floppy hat. Skedaddled quickly.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Hold on, Shelly.

DOBSON opens the envelope, takes out a sheaf of papers, and starts to flip through them.

DOBSON [murmuring]: Oh shit...Oh, I said, “Oh shit.” Someone just dropped off a stash of docs. Bank account summaries. Spreadsheets. Prospectus...With a memo explaining it all...It’s crypto...Sham deal...Dubai and Antigua...Looks like a fake ICO, maybe a rug pull...$34 million...SEC filings, transfers, phone numbers...Damn, the whole shebang...Ever get a silver-platter case like this?...Yeah, it says who did it...A guy named Carl, uh...Hold on, just hold on, let me do something.

DOBSON puts down the phone without hanging up. He boots up his computer. The wallpaper image appears. It’s Kevin Costner playing Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. DOBSON enters his password and goes to the Google homepage. He types in a few words.

DOBSON [loudly into the phone]: Hang on. Be right there. Just checking...

A list of Google results come up. DOBSON clicks on the first one. A large headline appears: “Crypto Entrepreneurs Gather at Mar-a-Lago.” DOBSON immediately turns off his computer.

DOBSON [to himself]: Oh shit.

DOBSON nervously looks around to see if anyone is watching him. He starts stuffing all the documents back into the envelope. He picks up the phone and cradles it between his face and shoulder and continues shoving the papers into the envelope.

DOBSON [into the phone]: Yeah, yeah, I’m still here...Oh, you know what? I don’t think this is anything...Yeah, I think it’s a prank...Yeah, the guys in laundering. They’re always doing shit like that...Yeah, yeah, should’ve looked more closely at first...But, please, Shelly, do me a favor: Don’t mention this to anyone, okay? Not anyone. I wouldn’t want them to know they got me...Yeah, okay, you’re the best...And, yeah, where should I report tonight?...Okay, got it. I know that Potbelly’s. It’s always real quiet around there...See ya later.

DOBSON reaches for a burn bag.

*    *    *

I don’t know if anything of the sort has happened at Kash Patel’s FBI. But it doesn’t take much imagination to wonder whether such scenes are occurring. The FBI has become a cauldron of vengeance, with scores of agents who worked on cases despised by Trump and his crew being canned—most notably, the gumshoes who pursued the Trump-Russia investigation or the January 6 insurrectionist rioters. Even bureau employees whose only sins were to be pals with agents who worked those cases have been booted.

Then there’s the absurd and troubling indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Even though Comey’s decision to revive the Hillary Clinton email probe eleven days before Election Day in 2016 helped Donald Trump win the White House, Trump has been angling for years to take Comey down for having kick-started the FBI’s Russia investigation that morphed into the inquiry run by special counsel Robert Mueller. A US attorney and several assistant US attorneys refused to move the Comey indictment forward, contending there was no there there. So Trump forced out this US attorney, put in a lackey with absolutely no experience in prosecuting criminal cases (she specializes in insurance law), and—presto—he had his bullshit indictment of Comey. (I’ve been reading indictments for decades, and this slim two-pager is the worst and most amateurish indictment I’ve ever seen.)

Comey is likely to beat the rap—perhaps easily. But this bogus act of retribution, the dismissal of all those FBI agents, and other get-even actions (such as Trump’s henchmen targeting New York Attorney Geneal Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff) are creating a chilling effect of Arctic proportions for all federal law enforcement.

If you’re an investigator at the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or any federal agency, you’d have to be crazy to contemplate an inquiry that might involve an associate, friend, or crony of Trump, his family, or anyone in his inner or outer circle. You have 10 years until retirement, kids you want to put through college, parents that need home care—will you risk your job by looking at the possible misdeeds of a donor to Trump’s campaign or anyone with a connection to his crew, let alone Trump himself? Not even a former FBI director is safe. And Trump is now braying about going after Chris Wray, Comey’s successor at the FBI whom Trump appointed to the job.

Should you get a tip about possible wrongdoing involving anyone with a link to Trump, you’d be a fool to even mention it to a colleague or supervisor. Don’t put anything about this into an email. Find a narcotrafficker to chase instead—if you haven’t been reassigned to help round up migrants.

The Trump administration has signaled it doesn’t want the bureau bothering with whole categories of crime, such as foreign bribery or failure to register as foreign agents. Attorney General Pam Bondi shut down the task force investigating foreign influence operations. In February, the leadership of the public integrity section of the Justice Department quit instead of dropping the corruption charges that had been filed against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. After that, this section was downsized. That’s good news for dirty pols.

What all this means is that a host of wrongdoers, including crooked politicians and Trump chums, have a get-out-of-jail-free card—that is, license to cheat, grift, and crime with little fear of investigation or prosecution. And it’s a card that’s easy to obtain. In trouble with the law? Buy a million dollars of Trump’s crypto. That ought to keep the G-men at bay.

Should an FBI agent open an investigation that irks Trump, he or she would have to fear losing their job and more—possibly being harassed on social media by Trump and doxed by his MAGA army. And if a gutsy agent did move ahead with such a case, would the Trump Justice Department prosecute it against Trump’s wishes? Forget about it, Jake. There’s no percentage in starting such an inquiry. It will only lead to a world of hurt.

That’s the loud-and-clear signal that Trump and Patel have been sending to the FBI, while they shift agents to street crime tasks and ICE assistance. The Comey indictment is merely the exclamation point on the don’t-fuck-with-us message conveyed to all federal law enforcement. Special Agent Dobson is no fool. He knows the saying used to be that justice is blind. In Trump’s second term, it’s now justice is blind to the crimes of Trump and his gang—and if you dare take a glance in their direction, we’ll rip your eyes out.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

The Paper. It’s hard to blame the creators of The Paper, who previously gave us the American version of The Office, for not matching the comic and cringe-inducing heights of their last outing. As many observers, including Steve Carell, have pointed out, the inappropriate conduct of Michael Scott, the boss in that Dunder Mifflin branch office, would be tough to pull off these days. It was the central element of the show, but, as Carell noted in 2018, it wouldn’t fly now. Bearing that burden, Greg Daniels and Michael Koman bravely pursued another office sitcom, this one about a struggling local newspaper called the Toledo Truth Teller. The TTT once was a mighty regional newspaper with hundreds of employees. Now it’s barely a sliver of its former self, owned by Enervate, a conglomerate that also owns Softees, which sells, yes, toilet paper. The newspaper is staffed by—of course—a few oddballs, with much of its focus on a website that publishes silly clickbait posts about celebrities pulled off wire services.

Enter Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), who set records as a Softees salesperson. His true love is not TP but journalism, and he has wrangled an appointment as the new editor-in-chief of the paper. He’s bent on restoring the TTT to some version of its former glory. But there’s no money for a fundamental part of his plan: hiring reporters. The paper’s compositor, Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei), who was once a reporter for Stars and Stripes, is delighted to be given a chance to hit the pavement and chase stories. But Sampson is forced to recruit volunteer reporters from the Softees team with which the TTT shares office space. Naturally, the old camera crew that chronicled the Dunder Mifflin gang is filming a documentary about the TTT. (Dunder Mifflin is also owned by Enervate.) And Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez), the accountant in The Office, is now an accountant for Softees. (Continuity!)

Hijinks ensue, as Ned tries to teach the basic who-what-where-when-and-why’s of journalism to the newbies. The show strikes a loving attitude toward local journalism, and the basic message is that its decline is perilous for our democracy. But real-life journalists will indeed cringe at the thought of a newsroom being populated by unpaid reporters. Nevertheless, the basics of reporting are presented with much care and admiration.

Without being able to replicate a Michael Scott, The Paper relies on Ken Davies (Tim Key), the ever-scheming, weaselly, and suck-up corporate strategist for Enervate, to be a foil for the do-gooding and nerdy Ned. He’s more restrained than Scott, and, thus, less entertaining. But the true danger from within comes from Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore), who edits TTT Online and resents Ned’s arrival. She would rather post trashy clickbait than bother with reporting news. It’s difficult not to see her as the Dwight Schrute of this world. Daniels and Koman, though, may have miscalculated. Esmerelda is an over-the-top character with a thick Italian accent. Her excesses (and clumsy plots to undermine Ned) do not land as well as did Schrute’s eccentricities and nutty schemes.

There are plenty of laughs, as Ned strives to do important journalism in less-than-ideal circumstances. He and Mare have that ol’ Jim-and-Pam energy (or tension). And there’s a heartwarming quality to the ragged crew that Ned aims to transform into reporters. Despite the inevitable comparison to The Office, The Paper, which streams on Peacock, does stand on its own as an amusing office sitcom. But like the Toledo Truth Teller, it cannot match the past glory.

The Baseball Project. It’s that time of year when baseball gets most exciting: playoff season. After 162 games, a handful of teams are left, and for them anything can happen. So I was delighted to celebrate this annual rite by seeing the Baseball Project this past week. The band—okay, supergroup—was formed 18 years ago, and it comprises members of R.E.M. (Mike Mills and Peter Buck), Dream Syndicate (Steve Wynn), the Young Fresh Fellows (Scott McCaughey), and drummer extraordinaire Linda Pitmon. Their mission is simple: write and perform songs about baseball. Since the band formed, it has produced five albums. When it comes to America’s pastime, there’s lots of material.

To the uninitiated, this might come across as a bit gimmicky or corny. But it isn’t. The tunes are inspired by the grit and drama of the game and the ups and downs of its players. Take “From Nails to Thumbtacks,” a song about Lenny Dykstra, the onetime all-star for the Phillies and the Mets nicknamed “Nails” who won a World Series. After leaving the game, he hit hard times that led to an assortment of criminal charges, including money laundering, grand theft auto, drug possession, and indecent exposure. He served six months in a federal prison. “You gotta fly high to fall this far,” goes the chorus. How poetic. “Harvey Haddix” tells the tale of a pitcher for the Pirates who in 1959 pitched 12 perfect innings—and lost the game in the 13th, partly due to a fielding error by a teammate. It is considered one of the best pitching performances in Major League Baseball history, yet it was a defeat. Again, how poetic.

“Erasable Man” is an ode to Josh Gibson, the Negro Leagues great whose stunning statistics—including a .372 career batting average—were kept out of MLB records until 2024. The song doesn’t mention him by name. (“It's easier not to see than believe in an invisible man / One erasable man.”) Last year, the group released a single, “Oh Oh Ohtani,” about you-know-who. “Hola America!” tips a hat to the arduous journey—“a leaky boat”—that brought Cuban players to the major leagues. (‘It's a long way from the Bay of Pigs.”) “To the Veterans Committee” is a plea to induct Dale Murphy, an Atlanta Braves MVP and fan favorite, into the Hall of Fame. The band’s catalogue includes songs about box scores, curveballs, batting slumps, baseball cards, and an assortment of players, such as Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Pete Rose, Jackie Robinson, Curt Flood, and Ted “Fucking” Williams.

This has been a true passion project for the bandmembers—a tribute to the game and a caring look at its dark corners. (“Stuff” is about pitchers doctoring the ball.) At the Hamilton in Washington, DC, on Thursday night, the Baseball Project scored hit after hit—maybe not “hits” in the conventional sense. For an audience of baseball fans and indie rock devotees, it was pitch perfect.