Sipsey Street Exclusive: "The greater fear within the beast." The FBI looks "invincible, but so did the Soviet Union in 1988."

We see the beast without and

We fear the greater beast within.

But those who win, fear the least, and

Sense the greater fear within the beast.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, Dangerous Doggerel, 1997.

As a self-made military historian without much of a portfolio, I still know that you cannot understand a battle without walking the ground of the battlefield. To see the ground from the perspective of the combatants tells you almost everything you need to know to understand why they did what they did. This past week I walked the battlefield of the Gunwalker Scandal. I talked to the combatants of both sides. And now I understand both the shape of the battle to come and how it may be won.

First and foremost, there is a palpable fear on the part of those who want to get to the bottom of Terry murder and the Gunwalker Scandal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Observers will note that despite news stories detailing the FBI's complicity with revelations about its paid, "stone cold killer" confidential informants divvying up taxpayer dollars to the straw buyers, providing them money to keep the Kalashnikovs flowing south of the border, not one mention of J. Edgar Hoover's boys has been made in hearings so far by otherwise outraged congresscritters. ATF, certainly. DOJ, of course. But FBI? (Sound of crickets chirping.)

The reason, say my sources, is plain and it has a name -- ABSCAM.

ABSCAM . . was a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation run from the FBI's Hauppauge, Long Island, office in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The operation initially targeted trafficking in stolen property but was converted to a public corruption investigation. The investigation ultimately led to the conviction of a United States Senator, five members of the House of Representatives, one member of the New Jersey State Senate, members of the Philadelphia City Council, and an inspector for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. -- Wikipedia.

ABSCAM was the FBI's payback to Congress for the Church Committee investigation of the FBI scandal known as COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination. Covert operations under COINTELPRO took place between 1956 and 1971; however, the FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception. The FBI's stated motivation at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order." -- Wikipedia.

It took the FBI years to deflect the many congressional threats to their very existence, and it wasn't until the Congress absorbed the lesson that the FBI was fully capable of carrying out retaliatory blackmail stings on them that the pressure abated, at least until the 90s, Waco and Oklahoma City. But even then, a fair argument can be made, ABSCAM continued to pay the FBI dividends of political protection and that force field of fear still continues to this day. I know. I saw it in action this week. I'll leave out the pedestrian details, but the fact of the matter is there is a reason that the FBI has not yet been targeted by the Congress for its role in these scandals and that reason is ABSCAM.

United States Senator Harrison "Pete" Williams, subsequent to the FBI's pay-back ABSCAM operation, federal inmate #06089-050.

Yet there is evidence that the ABSCAM mojo is weakening and that the Congresscritters who are seeking to get to the truth about the murder of Brian Terry should take not counsel of their fears. My sources, within and without the bureaucracy, say that the FBI is mortally afraid of what the Terry murder cover-up will do to their institutional survival. "They'd rather not go there," said one, "even the ones who don't really know how terrible 'there' is. They understand instinctively that it (the Terry murder, Gunwalker and PATCON) is the worst scandal they've been caught at, even bigger than COINTELPRO." But, said the source, "I think they're getting ready with a list of designated goats, starting with Mueller and working their way down to (the Tucson case agent supervising the Terry murder investigation). All they need is a credible threat from Congress or another big headline in the news and they'll fold." If it looks like the truth will out, said the sources, the FBI institutional prime directive will kick in. "They'll announce that they have solved the crime of the century and throw everybody, including Obama, Holder, Napolitano and Clinton, under a big bus," said one. "They'll save themselves by being the first to rat, but in this case they've got the ability to look like the big heroes who figured it all out first." The FBI will be saved as an institution, but said the source, "they have to be scared enough to give in to the 'better angels of their nature,'" he said with a bitter laugh.

Special Agent Homer Simpson considers his options in the Terry murder cover-up.

So, the sources and others who know DC concur with this analysis that I presented to certain congressional offices this past week. The FBI is a fearsome beast that is arrogant without assurance. What they fear is that we will discover that they fear. What they have come to fear as well is the power of the Internet to empower their opponents. Again, they look invincible, but so did the Soviet Union in 1988. One push, one spear point placed at the right chink in the armor and they will throw up their hands faster than the Italian army. We have only to understand 'the greater fear within the beast" and exploit it. Give them the assurance that all we want is that they deliver up the bad guys and go forth and sin no more on the way to their pensions, and they will "solve" the Terry murder cover-up and the Gunwalker scandal for us. Congress has only to point its finger at the beast and say, with credible feeling, "reach."