Monday, January 21, 2019

Five Sentences

There is a reason that I require all new agents and analysts to study the FBI's interaction with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to visit his memorial in Washington as part of their training.  And there is a reason I keep on my desk a copy of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's approval of J. Edgar Hoover's request to wiretap Dr. King.  It is a single page.  The entire application is five sentences long, it is without fact or substance, and is predicated on the naked assertion that there is "communist influence in the racial situation."  The reason I do those things is to ensure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them.

-- Then-FBI Director James Comey, "Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Racism" (12 February 2015), Georgetown University, Washington, D.C

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