FBI Interviews: A Little Reminisce

All this misuse of the FBI and Russian Collusion Delusion madness has provoked recollections in my aged brain of when I got interviewed by the FBI.

While at State, I worked with the FBI on overseas and domestic assignments on a number of issues. I found the agents, overwhelmingly, to be terrific, patriotic, and very dedicated to catching the bad guys.

In the course of my 33-plus years at State, I got interviewed twice by the FBI: once at my request, once at theirs. Keep doing what you are doing, don't expect anything too exciting.

The first time took place during the Reagan administration. After serving in Pakistan, I worked on the Pakistan desk in the early 1980s. I have to leave out some details, but I became somewhat suspicious of a mid-level political appointee who seemed to ask a lot of questions and get involved in all sorts of things not that person's business. This person had many contacts with Pakistani officials but rarely wrote up those meetings. I knew because people at the Pakistani Embassy would let slip that this person had seen so-and-so. Anyhow, after a bit, I got tired of muttering to myself about this, wrote up a long memo with what I had observed and thought, and passed it to the FBI liaison at State. A couple of days later, an agent came by. He thanked me for the memo, called it very useful, asked for clarification on a couple of points, and said he'd get back in touch. Never heard back. In time, I moved to another assignment. A couple of years later, this person ran afoul of the Department IG for using diplomatic privileges to get parents living overseas duty-free furniture and appliances. Spy?Crook? Crooked spy? I never found out.

The second time I was at my desk writing a boring speech for an address I would make at the OAS that afternoon. The office manager entered and said two FBI agents wanted to see me. This was a very short time after Obama's inauguration, and I thought maybe they were doing an update on security clearances. I wasn't worried.

The two agents, one man and one woman, young and polite, sat down and started by saying that they could not tell me the purpose of this visit, but had questions about people I knew. I, unwisely, said, "OK." The female agent reached into her briefcase and pulled out a large manila folder from which she took a glossy black-and-white picture. She put it on my desk. "Do you know this person?" "Yes," I said, "I worked with him in Guatemala." She nodded, and drew out another picture. Again, I acknowledged that I had worked with this person. Then a third picture, also of somebody with whom I had worked recently. Her male colleague took notes.

Then she asked whether I knew a person called something or another. "No," I said, "never heard of him." I remember her saying, "Really? You've never met him?" That set my "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" alarm pinging. I slowly repeated, "That's right. Never heard of him." She pulled out a picture of me shaking hands with somebody at a big reception in DC. She said, "A picture from a few days ago. This is the person you say you never met." I stared at the photo, and suddenly recalled meeting him at a national day event but, "That wasn't the name he gave. In fact, he gave me his card." I furiously rummaged around in my desk drawer, found the card, and passed it to her. "That's the name he used."

She took the card, showed it to her colleague, but before she could speak, I finally wised up, and did what I should have from the start. I stood up and said, "Wait a minute." I walked next door to the office of a Bush political appointee who had still not been replaced. We were friends, and, more important, he was a DC lawyer. I told him about the FBI visit. He said, "Why are you talking to them? I am coming with you." We went to my office; my friend told the agents, "I am his attorney. Unless you tell us exactly what this is about, this interview is over. In the future, you talk to me first." He handed them his card, and glared at them for a few seconds; the agents looked at each other, gathered their stuff, rose, and left. We never heard anything more.

Who knows what that was about? I still got my pension and my house has not been raided at five in the morning . . . yet.

Not very exciting, I know, but that's all I got on this cold Monday morning. I'll have something more interesting later . . . I think.