By Peter Lance Oct 29th 2016  From 2003 to 2013 I wrote four investigative books for HarperCollins critical of the FBI’s performance in counter-terrorism and organized crime. Starting in 1989 my reporting spanned a period of 25 years, citing massive Bureau lapses during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

I was highly critical of Justice Department officials in both Republican and Democratic administrations including Rudi Giuliani, James Kallstrom, the former ADIC of the FBI’s New York office during the Clinton years, Patrick Fitzgerald and Andrew McCarthy, two senior Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the SDNY, Valerie Caproni, a former AUSA in the EDNY (Brooklyn) who later became General Counsel to the FBI and more recently, ex-Attorney General Eric Holder and James Comey, who was appointed the 7th FBI Director by President Obama in 2013.

I commenced my investigation in the days following the 9/11 attacks, first, because my son’s high school was three blocks from Ground Zero and later when I learned that a heroic Fire Marshal whom I’d met named Ronnie Bucca had died on the 78th floor of the South Tower while trying to rescue crash victims.

As it turned out the FBI was the only one of the “Big Five” U.S. intelligence agencies that a reporter like me, without a security clearance, could properly investigate. 

After the publication of my fourth book, “Deal With The Devil” in 2014, I started looking into political corruption in Santa Barbara. A five-part series I wrote published in April 2014 prompted the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department to open an investigation.

In late May, a DOJ prosecutor from Washington traveled to Santa Barbara to interview one of my sources along with a pair of California-based FBI Agents who grilled another two.

In mid June The LA Times broke the story, citing my reporting.

But the Bureau’s probe into possible fraud and forgery by the District Director of Democratic congresswoman Lois Capps ended abruptly, along with a parallel investigation by the Veteran’s Administration.

Since then I’ve continued to audit the Bureau’s failures, writing multiple pieces for this website and/or The Huffington Post on a host of subjects from the 9/11 Commission’s glaring omissions regarding the agency, to the FBI’s failure to properly identify and stop Omar Mateen, the Orlando massacre shooter and Ahmed Khan Rahami, the recently accused New York/New Jersey bomber.

Each of those pieces raised questions about the performance of FBI Director James Comey.

Now, following the July 5th press conference in which he gave Secretary Clinton a pass on the FBI’s email/server investigation, only to drop a bomb Friday in the final 11 days of the campaign with his letter to eight GOP committee chairman, James Comey has now become the target of vitriol from both leading White House contenders.

For the first time in this election cycle the single issue that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have agreed on is that Director Comey needs to furnish additional details to alternately make the case for her prosecution or exonerate her.

For some insight into how he’s run “The House That Hoover Built” since taking over as Director I invite you to read my Huffpost on the FBI’s multiple acts of negligence in the aftermath of Orlando. Click the image below  for the full story.