Frank Figliuzzi: The FBI Way

01/15/21 • 72 min

1 Listener

Frank Figliuzzi grew up in southern Connecticut, but with his eyes and ears tuned to the nearby New York City media market and to enthralling stories of mob busting FBI agents. Those amazing tales made a big impression on a young Frank. As an 11-year-old, he wrote a letter to a senior FBI special agent, asking how he could one day join their ranks. To this day, he still has the personal reply that he received, encouraging him to pursue that dream.

Back then, the FBI primarily hired attorneys and accountants to become special agents, and so Frank later went to law school, to polish his resume for the FBI. It worked, and in 1987, after graduating from the FBI Academy, Frank was assigned to the Atlanta field office, where he began a career working – among other things – counterintelligence cases.

In counterintelligence work, the FBI tries to identify and neutralize threats from foreign intelligence services that seek to steal our military, economic, and trade secrets. Our adversaries also attempt to recruit US persons and to turn them against our own country. In this episode, Frank describes the vital work he did in counterintelligence, including how his recruitment of a double agent from another country to assist the United States, came to a sudden halt when the FBI and the United States was betrayed by one of its own – Robert Hanssen – a disgraced former FBI special agent now serving a life sentence in a federal prison for espionage. It is a fascinating and disturbing story.

Frank’s long and distinguished career in the FBI, took him to many different places – San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cleveland. Among the most challenging posts he held was in the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, where he imposed discipline – including dismissal – on men and women who violated the FBI’s strict code of conduct – decisions that were often agonizingly difficult but necessary to preserve the integrity of the organization.

At the end of his FBI career, Frank ran the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI, and instituted important changes to ensure that intelligence analysts and special agents worked more closely together to protect our nation from relentless foreign adversaries.

Frank was a thoughtful and principled leader and has written eloquently about his time at the FBI and about its core principles – such as compassion, credibility, and consistency – in his new book, The FBI Way.

If you have thoughtful feedback on this episode or others, please email us at [email protected].

Find the transcript and all our previous episodes at MSNBC.com/TheOath

If you have thoughtful feedback on this episode or others, please email us at [email protected].

Find the transcript and all our previous episodes at MSNBC.com/TheOath

Previous Episode

Matt Olsen: The Line

Matt Olsen held so many important and difficult jobs in federal law enforcement and national security that it is hard to know where to begin. A son of North Dakota and a graduate of the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School, Matt worked as a civil rights prosecutor, an Assistant United States Attorney, on the staff of FBI Director Bob Mueller, as the Executive Director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, as the General Counsel of the National Security Agency, and as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Though we could dedicate an episode to his work in any one of those posts, his work as a civil rights prosecutor – fresh out of a judicial clerkship – was fascinating and vital. There, he focused on enforcing the Voting Rights Act – a landmark civil rights statute – in several southern states to ensure that minority citizens were not disenfranchised.

Later, appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder to lead the Guantanamo Review Task Force, Matt found that assignment to be among his most challenging and difficult. In that role, it was his responsibility to try to meet one of President Obama’s earliest stated objectives – to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within the president’s first year in office. That, as Matt describes, turned out to be an enormously complex task – a conundrum given the population there and the difficult decisions that had to be made about who should be released, who should be tried – either in a civilian court or in a military commission setting – and who could neither be tried nor released. The process that Matt and his team built to inform those decisions was serious and thoughtful, but the task was inordinately complex and the headwinds that his task force confronted – political and practical – were fierce.

Matt also served as the General Counsel for the National Security Agency – the leading signals intelligence agency in the world, and one of the most important sources of information for U.S. national security officials. That job required striking a balance on uncertain and often shifting legal terrain. One one hand, Matt was keenly aware of – and devoted to – his duty to the Constitution and to the laws that govern intelligence collection. He knew his lawyers and NSA operators should never cross “the line” and that it was therefore crucial that they understood where the line was and not get too close to it. On the other hand, Matt clearly understood the need to confront dangerous and relentless counterterrorism and counterintelligence adversaries because of the harm they could inflict on U.S. persons and our national security interests. He approached this job – and this balancing act – in a careful, ethical, and deliberate manner.

Matt Olsen was a thoughtful and principled public servant, a gifted leader, and a true expert on national security. He is also humble, kind, and deeply thoughtful about the proper role the government should play to secure our nation and protect its citizens while honoring its commitment to civil rights and civil liberties.

If you have thoughtful feedback on this episode or others, please email us at [email protected].

Find the transcript and all our previous episodes at MSNBC.com/TheOath

Next Episode

Carrie Hessler-Radelet: Choose Optimism

Carrie Hessler-Radelet – a native of Michigan and the former Director of the Peace Corps – and her extended family have a remarkable and unique relationship with that storied organization. They hold the distinction of being the only Peace Corps family to have four generations serve as volunteers, including both of her grandparents, her aunt and her nephew. In fact, Carrie’s aunt, Virginia Kirkwood – who served in Turkey and was the 10,000th volunteer – inspired Carrie to join the Peace Corps.

After her graduation from Boston University, Carrie and her husband served as Peace Corps volunteers in Western Samoa, where they taught at an all-girls school. Her story of their relationship with their host family – Losa and Viane and their nine children – is incredibly moving.

Part of that story includes a return visit to their host family while Carrie was Director of the Peace Corps – 32 years after she served as a volunteer in Western Samoa. If you want to understand how a volunteer can change lives in a remote corner of the planet, Carrie’s story is illuminating and inspirational.

The Peace Corps is one the most popular, successful, and admired organizations in America. President John F. Kennedy, shortly after his inauguration in 1961, created the Peace Corps and called on volunteers to immerse themselves in another culture and another community, in every corner of the globe.

Today, these volunteers (of all ages), work side by side with local leaders, to tackle some of the most difficult and vexing problems on the planet – from health care, to education, to food security, to climate change. The men and women who serve in the Peace Corps are truly among America’s best, representing the best of America.

In 2014, following her nomination by President Barack Obama, Carrie became the Director of the Peace Corps. As Director, she led an extensive organizational reform effort, most notably to enhance the health and safety of volunteers, including the development of a sexual assault risk reduction and response program. That, she will tell you, had a very personal component to it – as a young volunteer in Western Samoa, Carrie was sexually assaulted. When other victims came forward and shared their own stories with her, Carrie knew that the Peace Corps had to take decisive action to ensure the health and safety of its volunteers around the globe.

Carrie’s description of the Peace Corps and the stories of service, humility, compassion and dedication among the volunteers – including a story Carrie shares about a volunteer named Peter – are inspirational. Carrie illustrates beautifully, why the Peace Corps plays such a vital role in America and around the world, and why we should always choose optimism.

If you would like to learn more about this marvelous organization - which celebrates its 60th anniversary on March 1 of this year - you can visit its website at The Peace Corps.