At funeral for an ex-FBI and CIA director, a remembrance of a Washington of a distant age

By Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, CNN

(CNN) — A memorial service Thursday for William Webster, former FBI and CIA director, served as something of a wake for an era that seems ever more distant in the age of Donald Trump.

He was eulogized by former FBI Director Christopher Wray as exemplifying “what it meant to be a servant leader,” having served in the US Navy during the Korean War, then later as a judge, before becoming FBI and CIA director appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents.

“Bill recognized his purpose as a mighty one: to protect and promote the rule of law, to serve however and whenever he could, and to be a leader of principle and dignity,” Wray said.

Left unsaid was any reference to the president or the current FBI Director Kash Patel, who came to power in part by riding years of resentment and criticism of the bureau, which he accused of being corrupt and politically biased against Trump. He has overseen a purge of senior career FBI agents.

Patel didn’t attend, but Dan Bongino, co-deputy director of the FBI, attended, sitting a few feet away from Wray, and also near Brian Driscoll, a former high-ranking agent installed by the Trump administration as acting director for 30 days before Patel’s confirmation and who was fired last month.

A spokesperson for the FBI told CNN, “Director Patel wrote a personal note to Judge Webster’s wife and family, but could not attend the service due to schedule conflicts.”

Driscoll, in a lawsuit, has accused Patel of saying thousands of agents would be targeted because they worked on investigations of Trump and his supporters. A number of other former intelligence and Justice officials who Patel has suggested could be the subject of investigations for past Trump probes also sat nearby.

Other luminaries included former Attorney General Merrick Garland and Chief Justice John Roberts, underscoring the bipartisan nature of the memorial for a public servant of an earlier era.

Webster was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to run the FBI in a time of turmoil, and then by President Ronald Reagan to run the CIA, which was also at the time recovering from scandal. He resigned as FBI director a year before his term was up, in part to avoid having the expiration of his term coincide with an election year.

The FBI and the politics of the current era are distinctly different.

Wray, who Trump picked as FBI director in his first term after firing James Comey, stepped down before Trump’s second inauguration after the incoming president announced plans to replace him well before his term was over.

Also eulogizing Webster was Steven Colloton, chief judge of the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals, where Webster served in the 1970s, and Robert Gates, former defense secretary and deputy CIA director, at a ceremony that drew hundreds of former FBI and CIA employees to the National Presbyterian Church in Washington.

Colleagues of Webster “remember the judge as a ‘straight arrow’ who didn’t have any predilection to favor one side or the other,” Colloton said.

Webster died in August at 101 years old. He was active into his recent years, helping to provide advice to successor FBI directors, including Wray, who developed a friendship with him.

In his 90s, Webster helped the FBI put away a foreign scammer who had unwittingly targeted the former FBI and CIA director.

Webster and his wife contacted the FBI after the scammer who, failing to get the couple to wire him money for a promised prize reward, began threatening the Websters, listing off details of what their house looked like and saying he would soon kill them.

The FBI later arrested the Jamaican man in the US. He pleaded guilty to one count of extortion. Prosecutors said the man had 30 previous victims that he had scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars from.

During his tenure as FBI director, Webster also signed off – and later defended before Congress – ABSCAM, a sting operation where agents posed as businessmen from an Arabian company, offering bribes for certain favors. One senator and several members of Congress were recorded during the operation taking the bribes.

”We must get beyond the street and the bagmen and the insulation,” Webster told Congress when defending the operation in 1982. “We were not engaged in targeting individuals. We were following leads that took us into public corruption.”

This story has been updated with a statement from the FBI.

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