Dedication of FBI Regional Office Site

Dedication of FBI Regional Office Site
Roseville, California
October 11, 2016

    The oath taken by every FBI Agent is not to fight crime, uphold the laws, stop terrorists, or protect the country or its government.  Certainly they do all these things, but the ONLY oath an FBI agent takes is to “Support and Defend the Constitution of the United States.”
    
    There’s a reason for that.  The American Founders understood that if we ever lose our Constitution, we will have already lost the rule of law, the freedom it protects, and everything that makes our country exceptional and preeminent among all the nations of the world.

    Ours is a Constitution that commands the chief executive to “Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  Our President and his officers do not get to choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore; or choose who gets to live above those laws and who must live within them; and they certainly do not have the power to make or modify law by whim.  THAT is the very bright line that separates a nation of laws from a nation of men.  

    It is also a Constitution that gives limited and enumerated powers to the federal government, and specifically reserves ALL other powers to the states and to the people.  In a free society, law enforcement is supremely a local and state responsibility.

    And our Constitution divides the federal government’s limited powers so they cannot be abused.  Congress makes law but cannot enforce it.  The executive enforces law but cannot make it.  And the independent judiciary alone decides guilt or innocence under the due process rights protected by that same Constitution.

    We meet here today to dedicate a new regional office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  It will cover 122,000 square feet on a sprawling 12 acre parcel originally intended as a commercial center.  It will house some 400 employees, a small portion of the more than 35,000 FBI agents and support staff across the nation.  

    Each agent is sworn solely to “Support and Defend" our Constitution.  Their fidelity to that oath is paramount, for the power they wield is immense, and if not bound by that oath, could quickly consume our Republic and everything it stands for.

    We dedicate this building today with the faith and expectation that these principles will animate every agent who serves here and with the confidence that in so doing, we will continue to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” unto the latest generation.