Tag: ruby ridge

At The FBI, The Rotten Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree

You can’t make this up.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Put these clichés together and you have the chilling saga of two FBI agents linked by blood whose conduct has forever stained the Bureau’s reputation.

One bad apple is former FBI Deputy Director Larry A. Potts. He was in a supervisory role during the Waco raid and demoted in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge fallout, two of the bloodiest incidents in FBI history.

The other is Walter Giardina, who was among several senior FBI officials terminated by Director Kash Patel in August 2025. His firing came after months of Senate Oversight letters citing whistleblower allegations about his role in Trump-related investigations.

As I recount in my new book “I Went To Prison So You Won’t Have To,” Giardina was also the FBI agent who put handcuffs and leg irons on me after orchestrating my circus-style arrest at Reagan National Airport, an ambush that dragged my fiancée into the spectacle as collateral damage.

Here’s the you can’t make this up kicker: Potts is Giardina’s father-in-law.

Potts: A Study in Bad Apple FBI Culture

In the early 1990s, Larry A. Potts rose quickly at FBI headquarters, eventually becoming the Bureau’s second-in-command as deputy director. His ascent coincided with the Ruby Ridge tragedy of 1992. Potts was in the Washington oversight chain when the Bureau abandoned its standard deadly-force policy and adopted special “rules of engagement” for that operation.

Under normal FBI policy, agents were authorized to use lethal force only when facing an imminent threat of death or grievous bodily harm. At Ruby Ridge, however, the rules were rewritten. The order declared that “any armed adult male observed in the vicinity of the Weaver cabin could and should be shot.”

This was not the restrained standard of constitutional policing. It was a license to kill. Within 24 hours, Randy Weaver’’ 14-year-old son was dead, as was Vicki Weaver, killed while holding her infant daughter in her arms. Barely a year later came Waco. After a 51-day standoff, the FBI’s siege — armored vehicles, CS gas, aggressive psychological tactics — ended in a fire that killed 76 men, women, and children.

Under intense scrutiny, FBI Director Louis Freeh demoted Potts; he then retired in 1997.

But not before “Pottsgate.”

To justify billing the Bureau for Potts’ lavish retirement dinner, senior managers created paperwork for an ironically named “ethics conference” at Quantico. When exposed, letters of censure followed. Rank-and-file agents fumed: falsify records as a line agent and you’re fired; do it for a boss’s party and you get a slap on the wrist. (DOJ OIG—Potts retirement; GAO).

Potts would later sit at the family table with his daughter and son-in-law Walter Giardina. Giardina is not just the FBI thug who put me in handcuffs; he also tried, in my view, to take down Donald John Trump.

Keep reading

Siege at Ruby Ridge: The Forgotten History of the ATF Shootout That Started a Militia Movement

The Siege at Ruby Ridge is often considered a pivotal date in American history. The shootout between Randy Weaver and his family and federal agents on August 21, 1992, is one that kicked off the Constitutional Militia Movement and left America with a deep distrust of its leadership – in particular then-President George H.W. Bush and eventual President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno.

The short version is this: Randy Weaver and his wife Vicki moved with their four kids to the Idaho Panhandle, near the Canadian border, to escape what they thought was an increasingly corrupt world. The Weavers held racial separatist beliefs, but were not involved in any violent activity or rhetoric. They were peaceful Christians who simply wanted to be left alone.

Specifically for his beliefs, Randy Weaver was targeted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in an entrapping “sting” operation designed to gain his cooperation as a snitch. When he refused to become a federal informant, he was charged with illegally selling firearms. Due to a miscommunication about his court date, the Marshal Service was brought in, who laid siege to his house and shot and killed his wife and 14-year-old son.

Keep reading