Matthew Llaneza (Part 8)
Fragments of a future narrative
Google Matthew Llaneza. You’ll find the Department of Justice’s press release about his attempted bombing—and the press coverage that, in essence, repackages that release for the public. With reporters acting as amplifiers for the FBI.
An ABC News piece on his arrest is filled with phrases like the FBI said; according to authorities; according to the criminal complaint. Pete Williams’ take, for NBC: the FBI says; the Justice Department said; agents say.
Other pieces, published in the ensuing months—or years—nod to his mental illness, or raise ethical questions about his case. But these seem sidebars to the way his story is understood.
In databases like the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which classifies Matthew as a homegrown threat; in UNC Sociology Professor Charles Kurzman’s Violent Plots spreadsheet, which includes an un-asterisked row for Matthew—he’s remembered, fundamentally, as the Bureau described him. In line with their aims.
It’s an old problem, Steve Weinberg writes in his review of Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate. The monograph, by Northern Kentucky University’s Matthew Cecil, “spells out how Americans were sold an image of an FBI beyond reproach.”
“What the FBI excelled at,” Weinberg elaborates, “was a non-stop public relations campaign that portrayed the agency as a heroic band of G-men who skillfully tracked and felled dangerous criminals.” Uncritical press coverage was crucial to this campaign’s success.
Gullible takes on the Bureau continue today: in the cases I’ve discussed here; in allegedly critical histories like Killers of the Flower Moon. Among Democrats, in recent years.