Two special agents at the front door pulled me outside. By that time, they had already had the house surrounded with loaded weapons, machine guns, shotguns... about 25 federal agents.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In fact, I had previously helped train one of the FBI agents who searched my apartment.
As Director of the FBI, I am sworn to ensure that my special agents have what they need to protect themselves and the citizens of this country, and that they are trained to properly use and properly deploy that equipment in the right times and places.
I thought the Secret Service would protect me from the press, but they were at my house to protect me from assassins with guns, not with assassins with pencils.
And indeed, last week, the FBI executed a search warrant on my residence. This happened one day after my attorneys had left a message on the lead FBI investigator's voice mail confirming my continued readiness to answer questions and otherwise cooperate.
I tried for years to get an agent because I was told you needed an agent. The agent-hunting process was grim indeed.
The attorney general called and asked me if I was willing to be interviewed for FBI director. And the truth is I told him I didn't think so, that I thought it was too much for my family. But that I would sleep on it and call him back in the morning. And so I went to bed that night convinced I was going to call him back and say no.
When I was a kid in Nebraska, a cantankerous farmer, known for plinking with his '22 at passing cars in which he perceived enemies, ingeniously rigged up a shotgun in his house, trained on the inside of his front door so as to widely distribute any intruder.
About five, six FBI agents walked into the courthouse and arrested me. They said I was being arrested for distribution of information related to explosives over the Internet.
While I was in jail, they handcuffed me and took me to a backroom, where a detective from the FBI and a Secret Service agent were, and they interrogated me for about three or four hours.
I opened an office in Terre Haute, established eight of them, and became one of the eight county agents.