The Better for America Podcast

WANTED: The FBI I Once Knew | Chris Piehota

Posted on Wednesday, February 5, 2025
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by Rebecca Weber
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BFA Podcast EP 343 | WANTED: The FBI I Once Knew | Chris Piehota

Description: Former FBI senior executive Chris Piehota joins Rebecca Weber on the Better For America podcast to discuss his book, Wanted: The FBI I Once Knew, and the agency’s troubling transformation. He highlights how weak leadership, political bias, and flawed hiring practices have compromised the Bureau’s mission. Piehota also shares his insights on Kash Patel’s potential role as FBI director, mass deportation efforts, and Trump’s push for national security reforms. Plus, he breaks down the declassification of JFK, RFK, and MLK FBI files and the growing impact of AI in law enforcement.

Please leave any questions or suggestions for future BFA episodes in the comments below!

Transcript:

Rebecca Weber: Welcome to Better for America, where we go beyond the headlines to speak with the leaders, innovators, and decision makers shaping our world. Now today we have an exclusive conversation with Chris Piehota, a former senior executive service official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’s got over 25 years experience leading complex national security investigations, international security programs, and covert operational technology platforms.

Chris is a recognized authority in intelligence and security operations. Chris, welcome to the show. I’m delighted to have you with me today.

Chris Piehota: thank you very much. Good morning. And it’s a pleasure to visit with you and your audience.

Rebecca Weber: Terrific. Chris, I want to jump right in and talk about your great book.

Congratulations on this book, Wanted, The FBI I Once Knew. Now, in this book, you really offer an insider’s perspective on the Bureau and how it has evolved over the years. Can you share with us a little bit about what motivated you to write this book and what you hope that readers will take away from your experiences?

Chris Piehota: Sure. I will tell you the primary motivator for this book was my wife. She kept after me for several years to write things down that I learned over the course of my career. And we were watching television one day and I was lamenting about some of the public activity of my former organization. And she said, if you don’t write things down how you were taught to be an FBI agent by the what I call the old breed of agents.

And if you don’t write things down and you don’t tell them how you feel the FBI. ran off track and how it can be fixed. It’s all going to be lost with you. So that’s motivated me to write the book. And what I wanted to do was provide people with, as you said, an inside perspective, that ground truth, that I experienced through my career, how I learned how to do what the FBI considered to be the director’s business in a proper way and how I moved through my career.

What I learned, how I learned to lead, where I saw the FBI start struggling after 9 11. And then I offer at the end of the book, how can we fix this? Because the world is becoming a more dangerous place every day and we need our FBI, but we need a better led FBI and a more politically objective and. skilled professional bureau that we once depended on.

Rebecca Weber: Absolutely. Now you were awarded, excuse me, you were awarded the prestigious 2017 Presidential Rank Award for your exceptional executive performance and operational achievements. And then you’ve served as the chief executive for the FBI science and technology programs. And there you oversaw, the forensic laboratory operations, criminal justice information systems, and so on.

But in recent years, it certainly does feel like the FBI’s mission has taken a huge turn. And there has been a lot of debate really surrounding its ethical standards, whether or not the FBI is upholding its commitment to integrity and fairness. I guess my question is, what in your opinion was the catalyst that sparked this major shift in the FBI?

Because the people I speak with, they say, they see corruption and these are everyday ordinary people.

Chris Piehota: It started late in the tenure of Director Mueller, where we, the FBI senior leadership started trying to benchmark the leadership practices. And the leadership approaches of the private sector and it accelerated under director Comey and then it continued under director Ray, where we tried to corporatize the FBI by we, they tried to corporatize the FBI.

I was always standing on the outside of that kind of raising concern, but they tried to run the FBI as if it was Google or Netflix and the FBI at its soul is a mission organization. The FBI combats national security threats and, crime problems. The FBI is not run in a manner similar to a Silicon Valley, technical firm.

So that was one of the areas that they really went off track. The other area that I saw was that when the FBI changed its hiring practices. The FBI deprioritized a lot of the previous values and beliefs that it held and started to look toward a more what they called intellectual workforce. And, they deprioritized the hiring of former military, former law enforcement officers and they went to a more multi generational and multi ideological workforce and the FBI did not manage that well.

Rebecca Weber: Wow Amazing how those changes in leadership in the approach Can have such lasting effects and, such an impact. AMAC Newsline recently published an article titled, America has lost faith in the FBI. Kash Patel is the right pick to fix that. you can, people can read that article right on amac.

But the article really highlights the plummeting trust that the American people have not only, have in the FBI, but in the government at large. Now. After thousands of broken promises by the previous administration, the FBI’s targeting of parents, for example, for attending school board meetings to protect their children from the left’s harmful ideology, and of course, the massive failure that led to the assassination attempt on President Trump.

What steps do you think that Kash Patel will take to restore the American people’s faith and trust in the FBI?

Chris Piehota: if I was to offer any Suggestions are counseled to the next FBI director. and it seems like it’s going to be Mr. Patel. I would tell them, look, you’ve got to arrive at the FBI with the intent to lead the organization.

You must be the leader and director of the FBI. You’re not there to mete out punishment or you’re not there as a political operative. He is there as the head of the FBI, the most powerful law enforcement organization we have in this country. There are three areas I would recommend that he look at as that strategic leader.

He has to look at one, the leadership environment. 90 percent of all the problems that the FBI is encountering right now are due to leadership failures. Weak leaders, weak leadership, bad decision making, and the inability to keep their personal politics and ideologies out of FBI investigative activities.

The second area would be the cultural environment that the FBI now has. The FBI culture has eroded over the years, and in the last four years, the FBI culture has really declined. And he’s got to look at that culture that used to be the FBI, where we had the fidelity, bravery, integrity. The FBI that they were the dragon slayers that the American people counted on to keep them safe.

The last area would be operational practices. He has to audit the operational practices of the FBI to make sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. And that they’re actually doing what they say they’re doing, maintaining standards, maintaining operational parameters, and again, protecting the American people while upholding the Constitution.

Rebecca Weber: if Kash Patel does get confirmed and he audits the FBI, I think a lot of people are expecting maybe Some big news a bombshell to be made to the public. What do you think might come out of that?

Chris Piehota: I think mr. Patel has to move in with a measured approach, right? I think what he has to do is he has to get there and again establish himself as the leader I think what you’re gonna see as immediate action.

It’s already happening where Many of the seniors most senior leaders and FBI headquarters have been dismissed And, they’re dismissing leaders in the field and they’re looking for potential or the potential presence of factions or people who conducted FBI business based upon political or ideological grounds and not the skilled.

Objective, apolitical, professional enforcement of federal law in the United States that, the American people need and deserve. So I think that’s what you’re going to see first. I don’t think he’s going to walk in there and turn the place upside down. he really can’t do that because again, we need our FBI.

The FBI is a major part of our protective infrastructure and he can’t take the FBI offline, but he’s got to, he’s got to repair that aircraft while in flight.

Rebecca Weber: Very good point. I wanted to get your opinion on how he performed in his Senate confirmation hearing. How do you think he held up under pressure?

Chris Piehota: I think he did a good job. those, Senate confirmation meetings are very tough environments. It’s a, you’re walking into at least half of an adversarial. group of people. So I think he did well. He kept his composure. He was professional. He answered the questions appropriately and he didn’t walk into any of the traps that they had set for him.

So I think he did well. I think he comported himself in a, just a very measured and professional manner.

Rebecca Weber: Yes, AMAC members thought the same. now, speaking of AMAC members, they are just, very happy to see Donald Trump’s commitment to mass deportation. President Trump, ran on that promise to the American people, and, we see what a great job.

He’s doing, and of course, it’s led by borders are Tom Holman. do you think that this is going to have a, an impact on the frequency of these horrific attacks that we’ve seen throughout the years, like the recent tragedy in New Orleans, for example, is this what needs to happen, in order to reduce the likelihood of those kinds of attacks right here at home?

Chris Piehota: I think it’s a necessary step to restore a certain level of. Safety and security in our communities. I believe that the border practices of the last four years have allowed a new threat environment to develop and intensify inside the United States, whether it be national security threats or crime problems in our communities.

So I think it’s a necessary step to start removing people from this country who, broke our net or the laws of our nation to be here while it’s. you can argue whether it was fair or not to them. that to me is, it’s a side issue. These people should not be here. We don’t have good accounting of where these people are and what they’re doing.

And I think that you’re going to see the threat environment change as, the security apparatus ramps up in the United States, you saw on January 1st, that. we’re not immune to what they call Fidelian or Fedayeen style attacks, where you’ll see the use of Small arms, you’ll see the use of improvised explosive devices, as well as the use of automobiles as again, improvised explosive devices on their own, or as penetration ramming devices into our crowds of people in advance.

and these people who are going to commit these acts are going to be willing to fight. They’re going to want to fight with our law enforcement and security, professionals, and they’ll be willing to fight to the death. And I will tell you right now, we’re not ready for that as a nation. So I think the threat environment is going to change.

The FBI has got to work with its federal state and local partners to close up the gaps and make sure they’re protecting us from external as well as now internal threats.

Rebecca Weber: Yes, another area I think of great public interest of late has been the FBI files related to JFK, RFK, and MLK, especially following President Trump’s decision to declassify many of these documents.

From your experience, sir, in the Bureau, what can you tell us about the process that those files might go through before being declassified. And in cases like this, where historical records intersect with national security concerns, how does the government really balance this kind of transparency with the need to protect sensitive information?

Chris Piehota: I think it was a good idea from the president to start divulging some of this information to the American public. What’s going to happen is, they’re going to collect all the relevant documents. They’re going to have to do a massive record search. Because a lot of those documents may still be paper based files that haven’t been digitized yet.

And if they’ve been digitized, then it’s a little bit easier to search them. They’ll be reviewed and screened for possible sensitivity, national security, and classification challenges. And then they’ll be either redacted or released. You’ll see it happen in waves. You’re not going to see, hundreds of thousands of documents come out in one day.

You’re going to see waves of documents that will come out after they’ve been screened properly and after they’ve been reviewed for possible, again, national security sensitivity or classification challenges, there will be a group of trained personnel who will look at the documents. They will then coordinate with the operational components at the FBI, as well as our intelligence partners, and then they’ll all make a decision on whether or not it can be released or not with any kind of harm to UN interests.

Rebecca Weber: Very interesting. We’ll be watching as that unfolds. Before we let you run, sir, I have a final question. I want to just touch a little bit here on artificial intelligence. We understand that there are cyber security issues, that we face. and, We’re looking at worldwide adversaries, including China, who wants our data.

tell us about, the direction that you think, President Trump will take in furthering, protecting American citizens. and, what needs to happen on the AI front?

Chris Piehota: initially two things from my former world was we have to learn how to use AI. To protect our people and protect the interest of the United States of America.

But we also have to learn how to use AI to deny any kind of advantage or assistance to our adversaries. And in order to do that, we’ve got to protect our data with greater precision and greater. Intensity. I know. And then people are going to be, we have to do it in a way that people are not going to be terribly inconvenienced because security and convenience are inverse functions.

We can make everything very secure, but then nothing will be able to happen in our society. People will be inconvenienced and it’s a, tough balance to maintain. AI research goes, our president and our government has to make it a priority for us to. Attain certain levels of supremacy in those areas, just like we have in other strategic National security areas and make sure that we are working with our international partners as well to protect those technologies from getting into the hands of Some of our adversaries and one of the other problems we have is that I think people don’t see this as clearly transnational organized crime syndicates and organized cartels Are also looking to secure this information so they can help become better bad guys So we have to make sure that we’re looking for a 360 degree protective Structure as well as an innovation structure very tough balance to maintain, but I think the president Understands the need for us to be the leader of that type of technology and maintain that supremacy.

I think he’s going to do that.

Rebecca Weber: It sure seems like it. It’s hard to believe it’s only 15 days, little over two weeks now that president Donald J. Trump has been in office. He’s accomplished so much so far, and he’s really won the trust of the American people. Chris Piehota, I just want to thank you so much and again, congratulations on your recently released book.

I encourage everyone listening, get your hands on this book, Wanted the FBI I Once Knew will be a great read. And we thank you so much, sir, for being with us today.

Chris Piehota: Thank you very much. And I hope all you and your audience have a great day.

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Stan d. Upnow
Stan d. Upnow
7 days ago

Kash The Konqueror

Grandma
Grandma
7 days ago

We Americans want all the truth. We’re sick of all the lies. What true, not true. Will we ever be able to trust anyone again?
Are they doing these great things such as, cleaning house, saving children, are they blowing up underground facilities, do we have tons of gold, are they stopping them from spraying us with crap to harm us, are they really here to help us….. where it looks great, but to turn around and do evil to us again? Are their galactic beings here helping? We’re there multiple mud floods, is there really a “Looking Glass”? How did the Mandela effect happen? What dimension are we on now? Growing up we were taught the 3rd, but now many elevating to a higher one. How long has this MOVIE been playing.
When they found the 80,000 children missing, where did they find find…dont tell us half the truth, tell us all. We’re they in an underground facility? Shoot, even John Kerry slipt stating out gov. had over 2,700 underground facilities. Duh! What about the train system and that submarines can travel under the vast lake under us? What’s true-not true.
How many evil twits that have either already been hung, shot, put to sleep or in jail? Where the Epstein or PDiddys list? Heard they were released, but I haven’t seen them yet. Or what about all the location going to be destroyed around the world?
SOURCE STATED: “NO FEAR”. IM TRUSTING ONLY SOURCE THREW ALL OF THIS.
What’s real or not real?

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