The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. An agency of the United States Department of Justice,the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism,counterintelligence,and criminal investigative organization,the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.
In the United States,a special agent is an official term used to refer to an investigator or detective for a federal or state government who primarily serves in criminal investigatory positions. Additionally,many federal and state special agents operate in "criminal intelligence" based roles as well. Within the U.S. federal law enforcement system,dozens of federal agencies employ federal law enforcement officers,each with different criteria pertaining to the use of the titles Special Agent and Agent. These titles are also used by many state level agencies to refer to their personnel.
The Department of Public Safety of the State of Texas,commonly known as the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS),is a department of the state government of Texas. The DPS is responsible for statewide law enforcement and driver license administration. The Public Safety Commission oversees the DPS. However,under state law,the Governor of Texas may assume command of the department during a public disaster,riot,insurrection,formation of a dangerous resistance to enforcement of law,or to perform his constitutional duty to enforce law. The commission's five members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate,to serve without pay for staggered,six-year terms. The commission formulates plans and policies for enforcing criminal,traffic and safety laws,preventing and detecting crime,apprehending law violators,and educating citizens about laws and public safety.
James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life;however,in 2016,he described himself as unaffiliated.
The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from four federal statutes:the Civil Service Reform Act,the Whistleblower Protection Act,the Hatch Act,and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). OSC's primary mission is the safeguarding of the merit system in federal employment by protecting employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs),especially reprisal for "whistleblowing." The agency also operates a secure channel for federal whistleblower disclosures of violations of law,rule,or regulation;gross mismanagement;gross waste of funds;abuse of authority;and substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. In addition,OSC issues advice on the Hatch Act and enforces its restrictions on partisan political activity by government employees. Finally,OSC protects the civilian employment and reemployment rights of military service members under USERRA. OSC has around 140 staff,and the Special Counsel is an ex officio member of Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE),an association of inspectors general charged with the regulation of good governance within the federal government.
The United States Department of Justice National Security Division (NSD) handles national security functions of the department. Created by the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization,the division consolidated all of the department's national security and intelligence functions into a single division. The division is headed by the Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,a United States federal law enforcement agency,and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI director is appointed for a single 10-year term by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. The FBI is an agency within the Department of Justice (DOJ),and thus the director reports to the attorney general of the United States.
William Pelham Barr is an American attorney who served as the United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020.
John Henry Durham is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019,the Trump administration assigned him to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections,and in October 2020 he was appointed special counsel for the Department of Justice on that matter.
Valerie Elaine Caproni is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Rod Jay Rosenstein is an American attorney who served as the 37th United States deputy attorney general from April 2017 until May 2019. Prior to his appointment,he served as a United States attorney for the District of Maryland. At the time of his confirmation as deputy attorney general in April 2017,he was the longest-serving U.S. attorney. Rosenstein had also been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2007,but his nomination was never considered by the U.S. Senate.
Karl R. Thompson is an American lawyer and was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2014 until 20 January 2017;he served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General during that period.
Michael R. Bromwich is an American litigation attorney who was the inspector general of the U.S. Justice Department from 1994 to 1999. He was appointed as director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management,Regulation and Enforcement on June 15,2010,in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He served in that capacity until the dissolution of the agency on October 1,2011.
Robert A. Ricks —known as Bob Ricks and "Backdraft Bob" —is an American law enforcement agent and politician from Texas and Oklahoma. He has worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,the Governor of Oklahoma and in local law enforcement. He is best known as the FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge during the 1993 Waco Siege or as FBI Special Agent in Charge during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing investigation.
Stephen Elliott Boyd is an American lawyer who served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs from 2017 to 2021. He currently serves as Chief of Staff to Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville.
Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the counterintelligence investigation undertaken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from July 31,2016,to May 17,2017,into links between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia and "whether individuals associated with [Trump's] presidential campaign were coordinating,wittingly or unwittingly,with the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election". Trump was not personally under investigation until May 2017,when his firing of FBI director James Comey raised suspicions of obstruction of justice,which triggered the Mueller investigation.
The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative,or Russia counter-narrative,is a conspiracy theory narrative embraced by Donald Trump,Republican Party leaders,and right-wing conservatives attacking the legitimacy and conclusions of the investigations. The narrative includes conspiracy theories such as Spygate,accusations of a secretive,all-powerful elite "deep state" network,and other false and debunked claims. Trump in particular has attacked not only the origins but the conclusions of the investigation,and ordered a review of the Mueller report,which was conducted by attorney general William Barr –alleging there was a "deep state plot" to undermine him. He has claimed the investigations were an "illegal hoax",and that the "real collusion" was between Hillary Clinton,Democrats,and Russia –and later,Ukraine.
Henry Swartley "Hank" Ruth Jr.,was an American lawyer who served as the third special prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. He was appointed after the October 1974 resignation of Leon Jaworski,and served until his own resignation in October 1975. He was succeeded by Charles F. Ruff.
In 2023,David Grusch,a United States Air Force (USAF) officer and former intelligence official,was interviewed by journalists and testified in a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. Grusch claimed that the U.S. federal government maintains a secretive UFO recovery and reverse engineering program and that it is in possession of "non-human" spacecraft along with their "dead pilots". In 2022,Grusch filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) to support his plan to share classified information with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He also filed a complaint alleging retaliation by his superiors over a similar complaint he made in 2021.
The Sol Foundation is a think tank established in California in August 2023 to research the political,philosophical and scientific implications of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). The foundation held its first conference in November 2023 at Stanford University.
