Louis Freeh In Context
But this brought me to look more closely at Louis Freeh himself. Freeh was FBI Director from September 1, 1993 to June 25, 2001. According to Wikipedia,
Shortly before and during Freeh's tenure, the FBI was involved in a number of high-profile incidents and internal investigations. Writing about Freeh in 2011, Reuters wrote that Freeh "faced widespread criticism for a series of high-profile blunders" during his tenure as FBI Director.
These included the Waco siege, which took place several months before Freeh became director, but he was involved in the highly controversial investigation, including allegations of a cover-up by the FBI. Wikipedia mentions further,
Freeh was accused of malpractice several times during his time at the FBI. In the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, Freeh failed to hand over 3,000 pages of evidence to Timothy McVeigh's lawyers. Freeh also received backlash for not looking into whether Moscow had recruited someone in the FBI, despite being warned by senior investigator Thomas Kimmel. It would later come out 2 years later in 2001 that Robert Hanssen had been recruited by the Russians to be a spy for them. In 1994 after it was discovered that Aldrich Ames was a spy for the Russians, Freeh was advised to require routine polygraph tests for FBI agents; no action was taken by him.
. . . Attorney general Janet Reno testified that information that could have prevented the September 11 attacks was mishandled by the FBI at the time Freeh was the director of the FBI.
In June 2001, he resigned amid criticism that the FBI needed stronger leadership, particularly after allegations of spying by Robert Hanssen.
However, despite his tarnished reputation, Freeh was apparently able to rely on his connections to build a lucrative post-FBI career. Again according to Wikipedia,
In September 2001, Freeh was appointed to the board of directors of credit card issuer MBNA; he also served as the bank's general counsel, as well as corporate secretary and ethics officer.
It isn't entirely coincidental that MBNA had also earlier hired Hunter Biden:
After graduating from law school in 1996, Biden accepted a consultant position at the bank holding company MBNA, whose employees donated more than $200,000 into Joe Biden's senate campaigns. MBNA's hiring of Biden was controversial because his father had pushed for credit card legislation which was beneficial to the credit card industry and was supported by MBNA during Biden's time at the bank. The legislation made it more difficult to get bankruptcy protection. This led to Byron York of National Review referring to Joe Biden, years later, as "the senator from MBNA" referencing the close relationship between the two.
MBNA was headquartered in the Bidens' home town of Wilmington, DE. Originally Maryland National Bank, MBNA's parent moved its headquarers to Delaware in 1982 to bypass Maryland's restrictions on credit card interest rates, and its subsequent growth as a credit card issuer depended on its ability to negotiate Delaware politics. Thus it had a close connection with the Bidens. (It was acquired by Bank of America in 2006.)
As MBNA grew, it became one of the most profitable companies in the United States, the world's largest independent credit card issuer, and the largest private-sector employer in Delaware.
. . . Historically, many MBNA executives were former employees of the FBI.
But with MBNA no longer employing him as of 2006. according to the Wikipedia link above on Freeh,
In 2007, Freeh formed Freeh Group International Solutions, a consulting and investigative firm headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware with regional offices in Washington, D.C., and New York. Affiliated firms include Freeh Group Europe and the law firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP. The latter firm includes Eugene R. Sullivan, a retired federal judge in Washington, D.C., and Eugene R. Sullivan II amongst partners, and Stanley Sporkin as senior counsel. Sporkin is a retired federal judge who earlier served as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement and as general counsel to the Central Intelligence Agency.
In other words, after leaving the FBI with a highly uneven record, especially in counterintelligence, five years after leaving it, Freeh reinvented himself as an international fixer with connections in law enforcement and intelligence, precisely the same line of work the Bidens were engaged in. A vignette from 2015, a year prior to his e-mail exchanges with Hunter recorded on the laptop, provides a glimpse into his lifestyle during this period:
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh would have died within 60 seconds of sustaining a severed artery in a car crash eight months ago in Vermont if not for the life-saving actions of emergency crews, officials revealed Friday.
Current FBI leader James Comey and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made the remarks when questioned about Freeh's medical condition, including a leg mangled in the Aug. 25 wreck in Barnard in central Vermont.
This was the first time that public officials have provided details concerning the serious nature of Freeh's condition after the accident.
Leahy noted that Freeh had a severed artery in a leg, but first responders, along with a retired FBI agent who witnessed the crash, came to Freeh's aid.
. . . "He credits those folks with saving his life," Comey told reporters at the news conference at Champlain College. Comey was in Burlington to tour the college with Leahy.
Freeh was critically injured in the crash. State police believe the former FBI director fell asleep at the wheel on Vermont 12 near his seasonal home in Barnard shortly after noon on Aug. 25.
So wait a moment. Eight months earlier, Freeh was nearly killed while driving a GMC Yukon that apparently also had a retired FBI agent aboard, since he was able to save Freeh's life within a minute of the crash. (Was the Yukon black? Sounds like Freeh still wanted FBI vibes, hoh?) What was going on? Apparently this was kept very, very quiet until Jim Comey, FBI Director at the time, talked about it, along with Sen Leahy. Isn't that odd?The best we can surmise is that Freeh, Comey, and a US senator are all part of the same club, along, of course, with Hunter and his dad. I have a feeling that Hunter's interactions with that club go beyond what we've seen so far from the laptop, and this is in fact still going on as we speak. But as of 2020,
AlixPartners, the global consulting firm, today announced it has acquired Freeh Group International Solutions LLC (FGIS), a leading global risk management firm, expanding its premier global investigations practice. The transaction, effective immediately, sees FGIS team members joining AlixPartners and is complementary to the firm’s investigations, compliance, and cybersecurity capabilities. The acquisition will add a new AlixPartners office in Wilmington, Delaware. As part of this transaction, Louis J. Freeh will step down as Senior Managing Partner of the affiliated law firm of Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP, and will no longer practice law.
But it's still the Delaware Way.