Power

The citizenry is dependent on the free press to keep the government honest and they are doing a good job of checking on the president. Trump dominates the news across the national press. Power corrupts is not a new idea and one of the best examples was J. Edgar Hoover who founded the FBI and headed it for almost 40 years. Later in life and after his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface. He was found to have exceeded the jurisdiction of the FBI,[2] and to have used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[3] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[4] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting presidents. Recently a number of FBI agents have come under scrutiny as well as some others in the State Department and each day additional troubling information is revealed as documents are released. During the cold war the CIA fell victim to the power corrupt syndrome and the press uncovered what turned out to be illegal activities.