FBI SNITCHES, BLACKMAIL, AND OBSCENE ETHICS AT THE SUPREME COURT

A lawyer explores a web of illegal FBI activities in the 1960s and the downfall of a Supreme Court justice in this nonfiction work.

“FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a self-appointed moral arbiter,” writes author Charns in the book’s opening chapter. For almost half a century, Hoover obsessively amassed intimate details of the private sex lives of public figures through informers, “warrantless burglaries,”and illegal wiretaps and bugs. Once allegations of sexual indiscretions made their way to his desk, Hoover would often blackmail his victims to further consolidate his power. Per Charns’ detailed and convincing narrative, one of the most high-ranking victims of Hoover’s machinations was Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Based on FBI files Charns obtained through a lengthy, litigious Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI, the author details how Hoover leveraged the 1960s’ rampant homophobia against Fortas, who became one of the FBI’s most high-level informants. While the villain of this story is Hoover, the book highlights how Fortas himself committed a host of ethical violations that eventually led to his resignation, tainting his progressive legacy as an advocate for racial minorities, children’s rights, and freedom of speech. As gripping as the book’s historical narrative is—detailing a seedy underworld of sex, blackmail, and manipulation at the highest levels of power in Washington, D.C.—Charns also compellingly chronicles his own personal battle with the FBI to obtain FOIA documents and offers an astute commentary on the ethics of using FBI files in publicized research. The author, an attorney, ably guides readers through a myriad of legal complexities regarding illicit FBI activities and subsequent coverups. At just over 100 pages, this is an accessible book geared toward the general public. The text includes scholarly endnotes that rely heavily on FOIA requested government documents. The book concludes with an appendix that features scans of many of these documents, which accentuate the author’s call for transparency.

A riveting, damning indictment of the FBI’s illegal activities under its founding director.