Welcome to the re-education.

I'm Eli Lake, and our topic today is the FBI.

Our guest is Federalist Editor-in-Chief, Malah Hemming Bay.

Restoring confidence in the FBI is a particularly good title for this hearing, because confidence is what truly goes to the heart of the issue that we're here to discuss today.

My father taught me the FBI could do no wrong, but I think confidence in the FBI, particularly the presumption of integrity, has been shaken.

There's no question that for too long the FBI has broken faith with the American people.

The time for meaningful and lasting reform is now, and it's up to us to help the FBI regain trust and confidence of the American people.

That was Senator Charles Grassley, had a hearing on restoring the public's trust in the FBI.

It sounds like something he might have said just last week. But this was from July 29, 2001.

At the time, according to a Gallup poll, less than 40% of Americans had faith in the integrity of the Bureau.

There was good reason.

The FBI impugned the reputation of an innocent man, Richard Jewell, in their investigation

of the bomber of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. It botched an investigation into a deadly

showdown with separatists at Ruby Ridge to shield agents from administrative censure. The

Bureau's investigators abused surveillance authorities, obtaining spy warrants based on incomplete

and in some cases false evidence. In the pursuit of the Italian mafia, local agents out of Boston

protected one of the city's worst gangsters, Whitey Bulger, for years. After the 1990s, lawmakers from

both parties believe the FBI must reform.

And there was some reform.

The Justice Department Inspector General was empowered further to investigate FBI misconduct

before it was largely left to the Office of Professional Responsibility inside the Bureau.

An FBI special agent named Michael Woods developed a new

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