Digby: Fool Me Once

There is a lively debate going on in the blogosphere about whether the FBI should be allowed to raid a congressman's office. I will let others make the legal and philosophical arguments. I would just offer this from the Church Committee files:

The historical backround of political abuse of the FBI involves at least three dimensions. The first is the Bureau's subsurvience to the Presidency, its willingness to carry our White House requests without question. When L. Patrick Gray as Acting FBI Director destroyed documents and gave FBI reports to Presidential aides whom the FBI should have been investigating after the Watergate break-in, he just carried to the extreme an established practice of service to the White House. The other side of the practice was the Bureau's volunteering political intelligence to its superiors, not in response to any specific request. And the third historical dimension was the FBI''s concerted effort to promote its public image and discredit its critics.