Video Transcript

Int: Part of what you oversee as Assistant Special Agent in Charge here in Seattle is our Public Corruption and Civil Rights Program. And this has seemed to have gotten a lot of news lately. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

ASAC: Yeah. First off, I’ll cover public corruption first. That's the program that looks at corruption within government, and that's federal, state, or local government. There's really nothing more offensive than someone who's been entrusted by the public with public funds who uses that for personal gain. And so that's a top priority for the FBI because we're often one of the departments or agencies that would be least effective if we had a local corrupt government official. It would be certainly hard for a local law enforcement agency to investigate a mayor or city council member who is also overseeing that department. So that is one area where we devote significant amount of priority.

The other is civil rights. Obviously, everyone in this country should be free from discrimination And those crimes are particularly offensive because they do infringe on someone's ability to feel safe in our community.

Int: That sounds like it's gotten a lot of news in the recent past. Sounds like something that's particularly insidious, that it's not just the person that is the victim of whatever the hate crime is, but it's also targeting their entire community.

ASAC: Right. When one person is the victim of a hate crime based on discrimination in one form or the other, all the other members of that class feel that. They feel the pain, the fear based on someone else being victimized. So what we see and what's the dangerous part is when people do discriminate, cause violence toward some of a particular group that is impactful to the remaining members of the group. And it does really have a negative effect to a larger audience, which is why we take it so seriously.

Int: It must be difficult, however, to distinguish between an actual crime and someone's First Amendment protected rights to say something about whatever they want to say. Can you explain how we go about that?

ASAC: Yeah, certainly. One of the things, the easiest way to remember is there's hate speech and a hate crime. So it's not illegal to be a bigot or a racist, but to act out on that, to cause someone pain, to damage property, to assault someone based on those factors, that is illegal. So every case that we look at, you have to set aside maybe your personal disgust, disgust with the matter of what happened and focus on the facts at hand. I just hope the people listening understand that the FBI makes this such a priority.