Eight Ways Trump’s New FBI Is Actually Working

 From Amuse on X:

The latest report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts has been widely described as damning. Headlines highlight words like “toxic,” “paralyzed,” and “in over his head.” Some commentators present the document as proof that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are failing. This is a mistake. A close reading of the Alliance’s own data, set against its earlier 2023 and 2024 reports, reveals something quite different. The new report, covering the first six months of Patel’s tenure, documents a Bureau in painful transition, not a Bureau in collapse. It records resistance, fear, and bruised feelings, which is exactly what one should expect when a stagnant institution is finally being forced to change. Crucially, it also records eight concrete areas of improvement that are large, measurable, and directly responsive to the Alliance’s earlier criticisms.

To see this, it helps to recall who is speaking. The Alliance is not a cheerleading squad for Trump’s second term. Its prior work was sharply critical of the pre 2025 FBI. In 2023 it warned of “alarming trends” in agent recruitment and selection, describing a decline in standards and a drift toward ideological hiring. In 2024 it documented how local law enforcement had lost trust in the Bureau, with working relationships frayed and federal help increasingly unwelcome. The new report carries forward that institutional memory. When such a group concedes that things are headed “in the right direction,” and when its own sources describe improvements in day to day operations, we should take that seriously. It is rational to weigh these developments more heavily than anonymous grumbling about tone, social media habits, or perceived slights.

The first and most striking improvement is operational effectiveness. Under the prior administration, agents describe a culture of “walking on eggshells.” Field squads had to persuade managers, US Attorneys, and Main Justice that politically sensitive investigations were worth the risk. The Alliance’s sources now say that this dynamic has been turned on its head. Counterterrorism and criminal squads report that prosecutors are backing their work rather than burying it. One veteran agent states flatly that “operational effectiveness has dramatically improved” and that there is “no more walking on eggshells” to convince leadership to act. Another reports that complex cases stalled under the old regime are now moving with full support from DOJ and local USAOs. This is not a minor tweak. It is a structural correction, from a system in which law enforcement actions were filtered through political anxiety to a system in which prosecutors and agents share the same mission and are willing to pursue it. (Read more.)