Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod Delivers Remarks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) Graduation
Glynco, Georgia
July 24, 2024
Remarks as Delivered
Thank you, Deputy Assistant Director Reese, for inviting me today. I’m deeply honored to be here.
First off, congratulations to all of you on your graduation. We are so excited to have you as our newest Special Agents. And while most of my words today will be directed to you, let me begin by speaking to your families and loved ones. Thank you. Your support, love, and dedication helped build the foundation upon which these new Special Agents stand today. Over the past three months, you’ve sacrificed your time with them so that they could do this. That sacrifice, of course, does not end with today’s graduation. In many ways, it’s just the beginning. You’re the ones who will bear the brunt of the irregular hours, the all-consuming nature of the job, the inability to know exactly what they’re working on. And you’re the ones who will worry every time your loved one walks out the door until the minute they come back home safe. It’s your support, love, and sacrifice that will inspire these graduates as they embark on this new chapter as federal law enforcement officers. So, on behalf of a grateful citizenry, thank you for sharing them with us.
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A few blocks behind Capitol Hill, there’s a place called Eastern Market that’s filled with food stalls and crafts vendors. A flea market even used to pop up there on the weekends, where you could buy anything from used furniture to old record albums. While there one day, I came across a man selling an assortment of framed U.S. postage stamps. Two stamps in particular caught my eye. One depicted a smiling policeman walking alongside a child, with the words “law and order” written down the stamp’s right-hand side. The other, commemorating the 175th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, pictured a gloved hand knocking on a barrier inscribed with the words “the rights of the people shall not be violated.” I stood there for a bit, trying to decide which of the two stamps to buy. Should I purchase a symbol of the law and order that ensures our country’s stability and safety or an emblem of the rights we are all promised as Americans? Which of the two is more important? The answer, of course, is both – because they’re inextricably tied together. The work of law enforcement helps protect the safety and security of our country, while our constitutional rights help ensure that law enforcement’s work is fair and just. Law and order without rights would be autocracy. And rights without law and order would be chaos. For our society to function, we need both. So, you can probably guess how the story ends. I bought both stamps. And both are currently displayed, side by side, on my desk at the Commerce Department.
As a federal law enforcement officer, it will be your duty to safeguard the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights while upholding the rule of law. It’s your duty to balance the scales of justice, to protect and serve with integrity. To bring to bear not just what you’ve learned over the last three months here at FLETC, but what you’ve learned over the course of your career, and even over the course of your life.
Whether you’re protecting sensitive technologies from going to our adversaries, like we do at the Bureau of Industry and Security, or protecting the integrity of the Medicare trust fund, like at HHS-OIG, your mission, at its core, is the same: to promote justice and to ensure public safety. To be the ones who resolutely ensure law and order, while at the same time, being the ones who vigorously embrace the Bill of Rights.
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Graduation speeches generally contain advice. So, while I’ve never been a Special Agent myself, I’d like to share some thoughts about one part of your job I do know firsthand: working with federal prosecutors. It doesn’t matter if you’re with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or Army-Counterintelligence, or the U.S. Forestry Service – at some point, you will work with federal prosecutors.
I began my law enforcement career as an Assistant United States Attorney, or AUSA, in Miami. As a prosecutor there, I had the opportunity to work with, learn from, and hopefully assist some of the busiest and best agents in the country. As you can imagine, if there’s a federal crime, someone is likely committing it in Miami.
Knowing that I’d be speaking with you today, I reached out to some of my former colleagues who are still prosecuting cases there. Combined, these prosecutors have over one hundred years of experience working federal cases, over one hundred years working with agents. They’ve pretty much seen it all. So I asked them: if you were speaking to a graduating class of new federal law enforcement agents, what would you want them to know?
Like all good courtroom lawyers, they came back with a numbered list. So here are their four pieces of advice.
First, talk early and often with your AUSA. Collaborating at the front end of your investigation will pay dividends on the back end. Bringing a case to a successful resolution – be it a guilty verdict or plea – rests on the work done from the very beginning. You know your investigation better than anyone. But if you bring the AUSA in at the start, they’ll end up knowing it almost as well as you do. And together you’ll have likely identified any potential weak spots or gaps that could be exploited in court. By partnering closely, you’ll understand why the prosecutor is asking for certain investigative steps to be taken and what it takes to build a case that will hold up at trial.
Second, the best way to prepare for trial, or to learn about trials in general, is to watch them. If you can, sit in the back and watch another agent’s case get tried. It’s an education that you can’t find in a textbook or in a classroom, only in a courtroom. If you sit through a trial or two, you’ll have a better understanding of how the evidence you’re collecting actually gets used in court, which in the future will impact how you collect that evidence. And you’ll see how testifying agents comport themselves on the witness stand. The best ones appear calm and confident, a confidence that comes from knowing the facts and being prepared.
Third, while AUSAs are invaluable partners, it is essential to remember that witnesses are not part of your team in the same way. That’s especially true with confidential informants and cooperating defendants. They are not law enforcement, and they are not your friends, so don’t get too close.
Fourth and finally, when you make a mistake – and we all do – own up to it. The worst thing you can do is try to hide or bury a mistake. The longer you go without flagging what happened, the more difficult it will be to fix. Know that even if the AUSA doesn’t find out, the defense team will, and your lack of candor will crater both the case and your reputation.
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When I think about those two stamps on my desk, the one honoring those who maintain law and order and the other celebrating the Bill of Rights, I think about what you’ll face when you walk out of here. Law enforcement is often criticized from both ends of the spectrum. Accused by some of not doing enough to protect the Bill of Rights, and by others of not doing enough to maintain law and order. And that type of criticism is part of what makes this country so special – the ability to criticize our government and ask it to do better. Federal law enforcement isn’t perfect. We want feedback on where we’re falling short so that we can seek to improve. We wield awesome power over people’s lives, including over their liberty. It's understandable that our actions provoke strong reactions by the public. They should.
But the criticism that has arisen in recent years is of a different and more pernicious type. Instead of criticizing federal law enforcement’s performance, too many have unfairly begun federal law enforcement’s motives. There’s been an increase of mistrust lately, of incendiary rhetoric targeted at entire federal law enforcement institutions and those who work within them, accusing law enforcement professionals of acting out of partisan bias – of making investigative or prosecutorial decisions based not on the facts and the law but on politics.
That’s just flat out wrong. But even more than wrong, it’s dangerous. Let me spend a minute on each – why it’s wrong and, then, why it’s dangerous.
It’s wrong because partisanship is anathema to federal law enforcement. Whether it’s at DOJ, or Commerce, or CBP-OPR, the mantra is the same – we do our work based on the facts and the law, free from political influence or considerations. Apolitical law enforcement is a core value. It’s in the very marrow of our institutions and the people who work there. Through my over fifteen years in federal law enforcement, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, as both a line prosecutor and one of the most senior officials at the Departments of Justice and Commerce, I’ve worked with hundreds of prosecutors and agents in dozens of cities around the country. I have no idea what their politics are. What I do know is that they are among the finest people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. Honorable men and women who are dedicated to making a difference and to making this country a safer place. Time after time, they aim to do the right thing in the right way. That doesn’t mean they always get the results right. They’re human after all, not infallible. But their motives aren’t political.
It's dangerous because attacks on the motives of federal law enforcement have a destabilizing effect. When confidence in the integrity of law enforcement is undermined, it isn’t just undermined for high-profile politically charged cases, it’s undermined for all cases. It’s essential that the public have trust and confidence in their law enforcement officers – it’s that trust and confidence that leads tipsters to warn law enforcement of imminent terrorist attacks, reassures witnesses when they decide to cooperate against deadly Mexican drug cartels, and ensures that juries don’t automatically discredit agent testimony in public corruption trials. Federal law enforcement agents, and the institutions they work for, are responsible for upholding the rule of law and keeping our country and its people safe. Those who wrongly accuse these agents and institutions of acting with improper political motives weaken their ability to succeed in that vitally important task, and, as a result, weaken our collective safety and security.
Beyond that, criticism that uses incendiary rhetoric, that casts federal law enforcement as a rogue element that needs to be curtailed poses the very real risk of physical harm. In 2022, the latest year for which FBI data is available, over 1,100 federal law enforcement officers were either killed or assaulted while performing their duties. Among the incidents that year, a man fired a nail gun into the FBI Cincinnati field office after posting online about his desire to kill FBI agents because of his political disagreement with their law enforcement actions. Just last month, a Texas man was arrested after threatening to murder FBI agents, including those who worked on a high-profile investigation. And those of you who are joining the U.S. Capitol Police certainly don’t need me to tell you how incendiary rhetoric can precede actual violence.
This needs to stop. Attempts to delegitimize our governing institutions, including our federal law enforcement agencies, cause tangible harm. For law enforcement to be legitimate, it needs to be apolitical – and it is, steadfastly so. But it also needs to be perceived as apolitical and that’s where the damage is now being done. Unwarranted accusations that our federal law enforcement agencies are biased have severe long-term consequences – a weakening of trust in the institutions that keep us safe from terrorism, protect our kids from online predators, and put fraudsters in jail.
You all now have a role to play in protecting the integrity and reputation of these institutions. The way you conduct yourselves in your new roles will impact the way the public views not just you, but federal law enforcement as a whole. So please remember how important it is not just that your work be apolitical, but that you not do anything that could lead to your actions being misperceived.
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Today, you join the ranks of federal law enforcement agents, ranks that, more than most, understand the necessity of duty, obligation, and sacrifice. As you embark on your federal law enforcement career, I urge you to remember the importance of maintaining law and order while at the same time upholding the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. I hope that, whatever your agency, you’ll work closely and effectively with the AUSAs in your district. And, finally, I trust that you’ll all serve as yet another set of living, breathing examples of how law enforcement actually does its work – based on the facts and the law, without fear or favor, and without regard to politics.
Congratulations on your graduation.