There it was in front of me. An article on Fred Wyshak. It wasn’t in the Boston Globe his long time supporter but an AP article in the Boston Herald. When I first looked at the photograph accompanying it I did not recognize Wyshak. He’s aged. He’s wearing his American flag pin. He has a wry smile hinting to his disappointment that he never got the big fish he was after.

Thirty years. A lot accomplished on one hand yet on the other we cannot but fail to recognize that unlike Ahab he never had a chance to catch up with his Moby Dick. His Pequod, the Boston U.S. attorney’s office, despite roaming afar over the oceans of criminality using the most modern of tools  and inventing new ones, had no  chance of finding his target.

It was simple to explain. He was never in that ocean. It’s as if Ahab set out after an imagined whale and no Moby Dick existed. It is impossible to catch something that exists only in one’s head and the heads of others who urged the pursuit. How would we read or would we have never heard of Melville’s book if Moby Dick was a figment of the mad mind of Ahab.

At his news conference with Putin we saw Trump standing at a podium next to Putin. We heard Putin say: “I had to reiterate things I said several times, including during our personal contacts, that the Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs, including the election process.”

Yesterday Trump said: “let me be totally clear in saying — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”

I had  to laugh listening to Trump’s statement yesterday as he explained how when he was crawling like a lamb in front of President Putin he misspoke. All I could think of is someone being interrogated about a crime and answering the cop: “all right, you got me, I was the one who pulled the gun” but during the trial said: “I meant to say, ‘all right, you got me, I was not the one who pulled the gun.'”

You do judge the person’s words by the context in which they are stated. If the person said: “wait, you got the wrong guy, I was not the one who pulled the gun,” that would make sense. If the cop testified he said, “wait,you got the wrong guy, I was the one who pulled the gun” you’d raise your eyebrows and think, “yeah, of course he said that.”

So as I listened to Trump’s lie yesterday I went back to look at the transcript of his statement. I wanted to determine whether he was just spinning out another lie or actually misspoke. It reads:

Those are the main concerns I recall I’ve had about the FBI. There are others that do not come to mind at the moment. My knowledge is only limited to the Boston office so I imagine at the 56 field offices and their many sub divisions there are similar types of problems.  It is not a problem free office and the perception of problems stems from the secrecy in which it operates and also from the acquiescence of Congress which up until now has been fearful of it.

The idea now is not to throw out the baby with the bath water. The FBI has talented, honest, and capable agents who act professionally. There are some changes needed in it but these can be done easily if the will is there. Those seeking its destruction because they are part of the Trump cult seeking to hide any crimes he may have committed must be ignored.

Congress may want to set up a select committee or appoint some prominent officials to do a study of it but not until the biased Trump clones now running it are no longer leading the committees. The safety and security of America in large part depends on the FBI. We should act to protect it while demanding more openness and more adherence to the civil rights of the people.

Other problems are its bungling of the Gardner Museum Investigation. It pursued the idea that it was a local job by local hoodlums. Its far-fetched theory was that the robbery was done by these local stumble bums. This was belied by the caper itself. The FBI sat back waiting for some locals to flip. That’s because it relies so much on informants, people who were looking for deals to get themselves out of trouble. Many gladly told fantastic stories in exchange for the FBI going to bat for them. Unfortunately, its been over 25 years and the paintings are still missing.

Another problem was its actions in the aftermath of the Marathon Terrorist attack by the Tsarnaev brothers. The FBI had information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev might possibly be involved with terrorists. It did not share the information with other member of the joint Investigative unit which is a typical FBI action. One or more of its agents went out to interview Tamerlan so someone in the office knew him. Shortly after the time of the bombing the FBI identified his photograph as a person who had perpetrated the bombing.

I never suggested the FBI be abolished. I suggested it change. I believed if it shared better we could do better work cooperatively. I wrote out my suggestions for this in my book. I had fifteen of what I called humble suggestions. They were: to record all interviews, if not recorded let the person read the agents report of the interview and make corrections, tighten up control over informants allowed to commit crimes, have independent authority review files on people who have been informants for over a year, institute real punishment for agents who break laws or rules and not promote them; change the culture where the only thing considered as being s true is what the FBI agent writes down in a 302 report; and give the Department of Justice (DOJ) more control.

I went on to advocate that 302 reports about a DOJ attorney must be copied to him or her, ensure necessary reports are filed and discipline supervisors who don’t enforce it, mandatory forfeit of agents pension for serious crimes while an agent, add people from outside at middle levels of management, experiment with new ideas, provide all indicted people with notice of electronic intercepts and whether persons outside FBI were privy to them, require notice to any person whose privacy has been infringed upon, and eliminate the fear of embarrassment.

The FBI continued along after Connolly brushing aside as it always had things that caused embarrassment. Then Trump got elected. He came to office with lots of baggage. For one thing, the FBI was already investigating certain things surrounding him that appeared to involve foreign interference with our country. They had received the Steele Dossier which implied Trump was a tool of the Russians. They had other information that members of his campaign were in contact with Russian agents.

Hardly could Trump take the usual position that the FBI was beyond reproach. Nor could he say that it was “the finest federal law enforcement organization in the world.” He had to do what he could to undermine it in the same way he continues to undermine the free press. He did not know what it would uncover. Clearly, as he saw it, it was not in his interest to have it go on as usual. What it was in his background causing him to attack the FBI so viciously as he has done. I assume we’ll soon be finding out. But there is no doubt he has been working diligently smearing the Bureau.

Morris testified as to taking money and wine from Bulger and Flemmi. He testified that when he did it he did not think it was wrong. Everyone gasped at the thought. I didn’t. I understood how Morris thought that. He convinced himself that they were giving him something not because they wanted him to do something but out of friendship. They liked him. There were no strings attached to the gifts. They would not affect in any way him doing his job.

That’s how he thought at the time. He knew the law that for there to be a bribe he would have to do something in exchange for any money or other gift that he would not have done otherwise. To have bribery there must be a “purpose of influencing the action of an official in discharge of his/ her public or legal duties.” Morris truly believed he was not being influenced. His job was to protect these top-level criminals.