FBI must prioritize, be accountable, and protect civil liberties: Asa Hutchinson.
The embattled Federal Bureau of Investigation has both an advocate and a critic in presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson. The former Arkansas governor unveiled a plan to refocus the mission of the FBI and reform its culture to increase the protection of civil liberties.
“I’m calling for reform of the FBI that provides more focus, more accountability, and a deeper commitment to civil liberties,” Mr. Hutchinson said in remarks delivered at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on July 17.
Yet Mr. Hutchinson quickly allayed fears that his proposal would weaken the bureau.
“Defunding the FBI is [an] off-the-charts bad idea. And anyone who makes that argument is ignoring reality and weakens our law enforcement,” he said.
As a former prosecutor, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Mr. Hutchinson professed deep respect for the rule of law and for federal law enforcement personnel.
“I’m proud of our system of justice in America. I’m proud of the rule of law that we have. And I don’t want to see it undermined. I don’t want to see it fail in its premier responsibility of creating a system of laws in our country,” he said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Headquarters is seen in Washington on March 8, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
The Hutchinson plan would begin with the FBI but encompass all of the nation’s 90 federal law enforcement agencies. Reform is needed, he said, because of inefficiencies created by overlapping jurisdictions and because of a lack of transparency and, in some cases, wrongdoing within the FBI that has undermined public trust in the criminal justice system.
Reassign and Realign
The first step in Mr. Hutchinson’s plan is to remove responsibility for drug enforcement from the FBI and place it unambiguously with the DEA, supported but Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Doing so will allow the FBI to concentrate on its two primary tasks, counterterrorism and violent crime.
Mr. Hutchinson said he believes this will decrease turf battles among federal agencies and boost the morale of field agents whose purview will be narrowed.
The plan would also reassign FBI administrative support offices to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in an attempt to prevent the FBI from acting entirely on its own.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on July 12, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“They need to report up the chain to the Department of Justice, where there will be transparency and clarity as to what the position of the Department of Justice is,” Mr. Hutchinson said.
For the same reason, Mr. Hutchinson would reassert presidential authority over the DOJ.
“In the post-Watergate era, we’ve had more of an independent Department of Justice [and] attorney general, particularly in the area of investigations,” he said, but policy must be set by the president.
Transparency and Accountability
Much of the Hutchinson plan aims to hold the FBI accountable by making its operation more transparent. That includes giving Congress greater oversight through the mandatory reporting of shadow bans on social media or similar actions in financial institutions.
Shadow banning occurs when a federal agency asks a private company to freeze or close an account without notice to the individual.
When a law enforcement agency believes such action is warranted, Congress needs to know about it Mr. Hutchinson said. “I would suggest that that transparency would be to report . . . shadow banning to congressional committees and to the Congressional advisory board that would be set up under my plan,” he said.
The FBI would also be required to make recordings of interviews, which it does not routinely do. Instead, agents make handwritten notes of interviews which become the record they rely on for testimony—sometimes years after the fact, according to Mr. Hutchinson.
“I want to reverse the general rule so that the general rule is the recording of witness and subject interviews,” he said, believing it will increase public confidence in the investigative process and produce more credible courtroom evidence.
Mr. Hutchinson would also urge Congress to revise the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702, which allows the FBI to query electronic evidence involving U.S. citizens gained by intelligence agencies when surveilling foreign subjects.
“Any inquiry into the Section 702 database should be reported to Congress, to the Gang of Eight [high-ranking congressional leaders], to our intelligence committees so that there is some awareness and checks and balances,” he added.
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