Policing, peccadillos, and politics, a forbidding mix

>>> of investigation broke into the offices of a group called the american youth congress . 1942 . american youth congress was a progressive group at a time when that could get you branded a communist and hauled before government officials to defend yourself. at the time, the american youth congress was concerned with questions like why young americans were being drafted into war at age 18, even though for every other legal thing in the country people were not considered to have full rights of citizenship until they turned 21. when the fbi broke into their offices in 1942 , they went looking for correspondence they had with one specific notorious anti- american revolutionary of the day, the first lady. eleanor roosevelt , known for being an advocate for yoous and causes including youth congress . the demand for report on eleanor roosevelt 's dealings with that group came directly from the director of the fbi , j. edgar hoover . one of the more notable examples of our top law enforcement agency being used to gather potentially politically damaging, potentially embarrassing, but hardly criminal information about public figures, but it was not of course the last instance of that. decades later, we're still wrestling with the legacy of j. edgar hoover and the feef dom he made of the fbi . he kept extensive files he called official and confidential files. there were secret documents that tracked the lives of famous and powerful people, including details about those peoples' lives that were not criminal but would have been embarrassing to those famous people if they became known. he kept these special files in his office, out of the mainstream of fbi business, away from the criminal investigations that were supposed to be what the fbi was doing. he kept those secret files because the secrets they contained gave him power. and as such, they were not suited to any law enforcement purpose but to his needs and that's called abuse of power. we now know from released hoover files that he wire tapped president john f. kennedy . we know he told president kennedy he was aware of an extramarital affair he was having, and then he told the president which chicago mobster his mistress was also visiting. as civil rights unfolded, he wire tapped martin luther king junior . he tracked his personal life , including supposedly which day of the week he supposedly met with his mistress. apparently it was tuesdays. in the secrets of the fbi , ronald kessler wrote the agent duly recorded that robert kennedy had gone to visit his suspected extramarital sweetheart, marilyn monroe , shortly before she died. and all these stories might peak the public's interest. none criminal in nature. each of them gave j. edgar hoover power over these public people whose secrets he harvested. he used federal law enforcement tactics and resources to gather personal and noncriminal damning information on public people and then lorded it over them to advance his own causes. under j. edgar hoover , the fbi became a free-lance agency, sometimes used against the president, but it was sometimes for hire by the president. like when the fbi tapped the phones of reporters that richard nixon didn't like, and sometimes the fbi was just used for the sake of j. edgar hoover 's sad twisted little ends. when the fbi , yes, worked on crime, but under hoover the fbi worked on politics, too. the agency's efforts in the latter undermined everything the nation needed from the fbi on the former. that's why congress ordered reforms for the fbi after watergate. investigating crime while also secretly playing politics is a combination with a bad outcome. that's one of the things we learned from the scandal of the nixon administration and its downfall, but also from decades watching j. edgar hoover operate. last week we learned general david petraeus had an affair. the fbi discovered that affair over the summer while it was looking into something else. those revelations led to protest from members of congress that they had not been told sooner than last week, along with everyone else. they wanted to be notified about this. ranking democrat on the intelligence committee dianne feinstein says the fbi should have told congress, bipartisan, republican, homeland security committee calms alerting congress in an instance like this the fbi 's obligation. lawmakers are sure to demand answers for why they were not told what the fbi knew as soon as the fbi knew it. they're sure to demand answers about that later this week when house officials are called to testify about the attack on our consulate in benghazi. we're still wondering whether or not david petraeus will be called to testify, too. the story about petraeus is quite another thing. one is a matter of national and international importance, the other appears to be unfortunate end of a decorated military career, the cratering of one guy's family life , maybe one woman's family life , too. mindful of the legacy of j. edgar hoover , the fbi kept the embarrassing personal details of david petraeus ' private life separate from the question of whether he broke the law. we are all human. we would all like to know about the affair petraeus , has become the must see soap opera of the national week now that the election is over and the new congress begins. it is way more gripping than the inaptly named fiscal cliff. it is more important to the press. from senators to members of congress to little old me and you, we would all like to know more about the petraeus scandal in the basic sense. i wager not many of us, even those hopping mad lawmakers, though, would want to go back to the days of j. edgar hoover and the fbi uncovering personal peck a dill ohs and using them for political game. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great