Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we're discussing actually the FBI. I have got to be honest with you, I never thought I'd be doing a video like this on this channel but let me just dig into it. I thought of making this video after, I actually found, I was on Twitter, and I saw Douglas McGregor, Colonel Douglas McGregor actually. I've read and heard some places that he's kind of ambivalent about being called that. I apologize sir, I don't know how to address you, however it is but Mr. McGregor. In any event, I initially saw this in the comments, it said: "This is getting ridiculous", which put me on to, it was from EXX ALERTS over on Twitter, BREAKING. Quoting directly: "United States Attorney General Pam Bondi to actively seek out and arrest person or persons at FBI responsible for withholding Epstein documents. And then Douglas McGregor says, "this is getting ridiculous" and then EXX ALERTS comes back and says, "what the HE-double-hockey-sticks is going on?" which I myself am like, yeah what is going on, okay? And I thought it was worth taking a moment to like just go into the history, not a deep history of the FBI, but a sort of conceptual history of what the FBI is supposed to be. It's not supposed to be like an anglophone KGB, okay? That's not its function. It was never supposed to be that. What is it supposed to be? 

Well, the thumbnail is actually kind of useful and I like to use these little moments to take pop culture and hopefully try to put as sort of wide, sort of build as big a tent sort of conceptually so as many people can get this as possible. Do you remember this guy? So this guy is, he's in the thumbnail, in the thumbnail that's from the show Matlock which I'll get into in a moment. For those of you who are Die Hard fans as I am, you will remember him, I believe his name was Theo in Die Hard, he was the guy that was the computer guy in Die Hard and his name, I went out there and found it, sorry hold on just a minute folks, yeah in the show Matlock, he's playing a guy named Conrad McMaster but his name is Clarence Gilyard and actually his life story is rather interesting. He died a little bit younger than I think probably folks would have liked but yeah, he played a guy named McMasters, Conrad McMasters on the show Matlock. Quoting directly from Wikipedia, wikipedia.org: "McMasters is a private investigator for Ben Matlock. Before working for him, Conrad worked for Dalton Parks, as a deputy sheriff in Manteo, where Matlock meets him in hopes of figuring out whether or not Spencer Hamilton killed his brother's killer." So Matlock - if you remember Matlock from the old days - Matlock was like almost a punch-line to jokes at a certain point especially in the like Pete Simpson's era where it was, "oh we want our Matlock and things".

The point I'm trying to make with this is if you go back to J. Edgar Hoover who people sort of attribute with kind of creating the FBI, but there was a pre-existing institution. The FBI's function when it was created was to act in the same way as the private investigator to Mr. Matlock acts in the show Matlock, except it was in a state capacity, okay? And if you go back to a more constitutional in my opinion, time you could argue simpler time, the thinking was the state's attorney should have the investigatory kind of functions similar to a defense attorney could have with a private investigator, which I've always found that a little bit of a specious argument where you have got already law enforcement there; that's the state already. But okay whatever, in a Federal level, the thinking was especially when it comes to interstate commerce and how the interaction between states, you could need this sort of extra investigative body on top of standard law enforcement to assist the US Attorney okay. But again, it's worth pointing out in this thumbnail what the original thinking was. And remember, there's a pretty good movie. I think it's a little hyperbolic in parts and frankly I'm really tired of everybody trying to kind of get into people's private lives overly, but I do know J. Edgar Hoover has some peccadillos, let's put it that way. But in any event, there was a movie, I think it had DiCaprio in it but they mentioned off-hand and I remember reading this in biographies on Hoover when I was younger, and in many ways I have a lot of respect for Hoover because I think he had a very pragmatic approach to law enforcement and I really like anybody that was as anti-communist as he was back then, but I am kind of a John Birch vein that runs through me at all times. 

In any event though, J. Edgar Hoover was far from perfect and if you go back and even in that film where DiCaprio plays him, off hand in one scene they mention, and in multiple books they brought this up, the FBI wasn't even allowed to carry weapons; they didn't carry arms. Initially in their creation, again they were like private investigators for a defense attorney, it was just sort of the prosecution's analog of that. And I think that's important to point out, where now we've got a President with a clear mandate. We've got criminally culpable presumably people, who in any other context we would have their names, and here is the FBI who seems to be refusing the request of the US Attorney themselves. So that's like this guy in the thumbnail saying to Ben Matlock, "no I'm not going to give you the stuff I found, that you paid me to go get." Again, I find this very discouraging to say the least - no I don't find this discouraging - I'm indignant, I find this appalling frankly. I'm a little bit down about the fact that it's happening in such a banal way where they are, "no we're just not going to give it to you!" But that's wrong; that's not the function of the FBI; that wasn't what they were intended for at the outset of their creation, when they were created. And my question is starting to be, it is my understanding they exist solely at the pleasure of the President. I believe they came into existence under Executive Order. Now again, Congressional funding and things is what it is, but again, at a certain point, if an institution which is designed to aid the US Attorney isn't doing that, shouldn't the question then be asked, is this institution fulfilling its function? Is it operating to its raison d'être, it's reason for being? And if it's not, I don't think it is irrational or in any way hyperbolic to ask should it even exist anymore if it's not going to do what it's designed to do which is give information to the US Attorney that you've investigated, again, it is in the name, Federal Bureau of Investigation. It's not 'we get to take in data, just hold on to it', no you're investigating on behalf of the US Attorneys. If you're not going to do that, I mean it seriously calls into question whether or not that body in my opinion, should exist at all.