Whitey The United States Vs. James Bulger (2014)
Directed by Joe Berlinger
Written by Documentary
Starring Whitey Bulger
Release Date January 18th, 2014
Published January 18th, 2014
I sit here thoroughly depressed and deeply moved. Joe Berlinger's "Whitey: The United States of America V. James J. Bulger" has wrecked me. The case that Berlinger lays out against the FBI and aspects of the Justice Department is thorough, damning and terrifyingly true. That Whitey Bulger is a horrible murderous individual is not in question. How the government made use of Bulger during his time being a horrible murderous individual is as criminal as any crime Bulger committed.
What are we to do when the people charged with enforcing our laws flaunt those laws. It's the question we've confronted since we first hired men to be police officers and prosecutors. That these, our most trusted individuals can be corrupted is not surprising. When these same men make criminals of us all through their actions however, it's not so much surprising as appalling and terrifying. That's what the FBI and the Justice Department did, they made criminals of us all under the guise of fighting a just fight.
From the late 70's through the early 90's members of Boston's FBI and Justice Department aided and abetted the life of the murderer Whitey Bulger. Bulger, you see, was uniquely positioned to be of use to them as a supposed FBI informant. However, Bulger was not and never has been an FBI informant. Rather, Bulger's name as a criminal was used as a cover by lazy, venal FBI agents and Justice officials to gain access to members of La Cosa Nostra, the Italian mob.
Placing Bulger's name on an informant list lent credibility to flimsy prosecution requests that indeed did lead to the capture and conviction of criminals equal to and greater than Whitey Bulger. Indeed, one could argue that while leaving Bulger free under the guise of being an informant to kill whom he pleased, may have saved more lives than Bulger's actions ever took. You could argue that if you were capable of the kind of evil calculus that made people like Whitey Bulger possible.
Do the ends justify the means? That may be a question you ask. Lives were saved when evidence uncovered using Bulger's name put away members of the Anguilo crime family; the Anguilo's were killers just like Whitey. But ask yourself this: Who should decide who lived and who died? Who's to say that the lives saved by putting away the Anguilo's were worth more than the lives lost by those killed by Whitey Bulger and the members of his crime family. Members of Boston's law enforcement community, the FBI and the Justice Department made themselves into Gods and decided fates. What gave them the right?
"Whitey" forces you to confront this question. "Whitey" demands that when you begin considering the math in who lived and who died by what murderous thug that you look into the eyes of the wife of Michael Donahue, a man killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and explain why the life of her husband was mathematically convenient for American law enforcement. The facts are indisputable that if law enforcement had done its job Whitey Bulger would have been in prison long before Michael Donahue died. Whitey was allowed to take the life of Michael Donahue, husband and father, because Whitey's life made life easier for a group of lazy, fat, FBI criminals and Justice officials.
It gets even more disgusting than the simple actions of a few corrupt FBI Agents and a few prosecutors however. Even after Whitey Bulger was captured and brought to trial last year, after nearly 15 years on the run, the Justice Department continued the deception and maintained their lie so as not to lose the tainted evidence they gained from his name. The supposedly heroic members of the Justice Department who put away one of "America's Most 10 Most Wanted Criminals," are perpetuating the crimes their predecessors committed because they don't want to confront the work that would be needed to clean up this mess.
Prosecutor Michael Kelly who's been feted as much as anyone for his hard-nosed prosecutorial tactics in the Bulger case even goes as far as to attack the one heroic member of the FBI who tried to expose Bulger in the midst of worst criminal years and make him a target. Bob Fitzpatrick called Bulger's installation as an upper echelon informant into question in the early 80's and was shouted down before being drummed out of the FBI. When he tells this story in court, even as he is corroborating cases against Bulger, he is treated as a criminal for pointing out the corruption that allowed Bulger to be a murderous criminal for so long. Why? To maintain the convenient lie: That Whitey Bulger was an informant.
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