In this segment of The Dennis Prager Radio Show, host Dennis Prager and Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel discuss perceived overreach and failures within elite U.S. institutions, especially the FBI. Strassel admits she once placed too much faith in institutional leadership and argues that the FBI remains largely composed of dedicated public servants, but that granting it broad investigative latitude combined with what she describes as "unhinged" and arrogant leadership—specifically former FBI Director James Comey—creates a recipe for disaster. She calls for more rigorous Senate confirmation processes for top positions. The conversation shifts to the political origins of the Steele dossier, noting it was commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, not the FBI, and raises the question of former President Barack Obama’s awareness and actions, linking this to the Michael Flynn case. Strassel then critiques a recent petition signed by 2,000 former DOJ/FBI officials calling for Attorney General Bill Barr’s resignation, labeling the signatories as politically motivated and “bad actors.” She defends Barr’s decision to appoint longtime prosecutor Jeff Jensen to review the Flynn case, emphasizing Jensen’s credibility and his recommendation to withdraw the case, which Barr accepted. Throughout, Strassel balances criticism of institutional overreach with defense of certain officials, highlighting the tension between political narratives and the perceived integrity of career law‑enforcement professionals.
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I'm gonna give a big general question. Has it, I almost feel silly, I feel somewhat like a child asking, but I will anyway. I love this country, and I may, I'm starting to think that I may have had slightly too high an opinion of some of our elite institutions. Has that happened to you?
I would put it this way, Dennis. I, I feel very much as you do, but I, I think I had too much faith in the leadership of some of our institutions. I think, for instance, that the FBI is still largely, 99%, composed of, of people who are committed to defending and protecting the United States and going after true bad guys. I think one of the problems that this exposed is that because we want those institutions to do well and be able to act rapidly, that we give them a great deal of latitude and ability to investigate. And when you end up with someone who is so unhinged and sort of arrogant as a Jim Comey at the top of that place, it's a recipe for disaster. And we— what I come out of this understanding is that we have to be far more careful in future about the Senate confirmation process and who we put in these positions.
Are you prepared to say anything about former President Obama's role?
Look, I think this is going to be the next big story. A lot of us who've covered this have always wondered, uh, what exactly that story looked like, because it was always there, right? People forget this, is that all the focus on this when this dossier came about was about the fact that it turned— it got turned over to the FBI. But let's not forget that the dossier was not commissioned initially for the FBI. It was commissioned for political actors. It was commissioned for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. And there is no question that it circulated in top ranks of the government. And so the question was not, did Obama know about it, but when did he, and what actions were taken as a result of that. And that gets as well to these actions with regard to Flynn, which is just a small piece of this.
There was a letter circulated or a petition circulated yesterday. I'm reading to you from NBC News: 2,000 former DOJ/FBI officials call on Attorney General Barr to resign. Are you familiar with that?
Yes, and my view is that all 2,000 of them should be drummed out of decent society because, you know what, this is patently political what they are doing. And it is, it's so unfair. People immediately came out, and you can measure the level of disingenuousness in them by what they said about this probe. And if they immediately came out and said Bill Barr did this and Bill Barr is acting on behalf of Donald Trump, then you know that they are bad actors. Because what really happened was that Bill Barr appointed a U.S. attorney from Missouri named Jeff Jensen, and he conducted conducted the review. And this guy spent 10 years at the FBI, 10 years as a career prosecutor. No one has ever suggested that he is anything other than a straight-up prosecutor. He was the one that looked into the Flynn case. He was the one that recommended the case be withdrawn to Bill Barr, and Bill Barr agreed with that assessment.
I only raise it in light of your statement, 99% are wonderful. This is 2,000 people. That's a lot.
