Ryan Cleckner’s Essay In Imprimis

Imprimis is a monthly publication of Hillsdale College that presents digests of speeches given at seminars and other events sponsored by the college. Like Hillsdale College itself, it usually has a conservative or libertarian bent.

A speech given by Ryan Cleckner, an attorney formerly with NSSF, on federal law enforcement agencies was this month’s topic. Entitled, “Our Out-of-Control Federal Law Enforcement Agencies”, it focused primarily on abuses, many deadly, by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

The speech begins with the killing of Bryan Malinowski by the ATF in Little Rock, Arkansas and concludes with a reference to the ATF’s attempt to illegally construct an electronic database of firearms and owners. Interspersed with these are stories about the FBI’s use of dawn raids on a non-violent pro-life activist and Trump confidant Roger Stone among others.

From the speech:

I served in the military as a Special Operations sniper and Sniper Team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion. I could have gone on to become a sharpshooter on a police SWAT team or even joined the FBI or one of the other three-letter federal agencies that were widely considered, in the past, to be the cream of the crop in terms of law enforcement. Sadly, they are no longer thought of in the same way.

The flip side of the increasingly thuggish character of these agencies is their diminished effectiveness in fulfilling their core missions, to the point that the American public cannot help but notice. Consider the recent assassination attempt—very nearly successful—on President Trump. The U.S. Secret Service and the FBI are being anything but transparent about their investigations and seem to be going out of their way to make it as difficult as possible for Congress and the public to learn what happened. But the most obvious fact about it, which cannot be covered up, is that the Secret Service allowed a 20-year-old shooter to access the most ideal location for a sniper, even after he had been spotted acting suspiciously and using a laser rangefinder and had been watched for almost 30 minutes. This alone is enough to know the Secret Service that day was more Keystone Cop than cream of the crop.

This speech by Mr. Cleckner is well worth your time reading as are virtually all of the essays and speeches published in Imprimis. If you want to subscribe to Imprimis, it is free.