During my prosecutorial tenure I worked in conjunction with the FBI on a couple of occasions – with mixed results. They certainly have some impressive resources at their disposal, which helped us in State prosecutions.
But on their own, my experience was that they could go off track on occasion. And that was even before they were as politicized as they seem to have become since the Obama administration.
What brought this to my mind was the New Year’s ‘terrorist attack’ in New Orleans. I say ‘terrorist attack’ because that’s what the New Orleans mayor called it — and how anyone with any common sense would describe it, after learning the facts.
For those who may not know what occurred, I’ll give you’re a brief description based on what I’ve gleaned from a variety of news outlets:
At around 0315 hours on New Year’s day, a pick-up truck plowed into a crowd of revelers in the French Quarter.
The driver of the pick-up got out and shot at approaching police. He was killed in the exchange of gunfire. As is my habit, I won’t list the name of the killer – but he has a middle-eastern name and appeared to be of that ethnicity.
Within the pick-up truck were found materials for fabricating IED’s – the weapon of choice of terrorists. The truck had a Texas license plate, that was tracked crossing the border from Mexico two days before the attack.
So you decide for yourself if you agree with the New Orleans mayor – and common sense!
A spokesperson for the FBI, apparently unfamiliar with the evidence and unaware the New Orleans mayor had already called it a terrorist attack, publicly declared there was no basis to believe this was an act of terrorism. If this was an attempt to destroy whatever shred of credibility the FBI still has, they succeeded with me.
First, what exactly is “terrorism”? The best explanation I’ve gathered comes from the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute as “The word terrorism does not have a commonly agreed or legally adopted unique definition because defining its scope is politically complex, and its selective use is often the subject of controversy in and outside legal domestic and international arenas.”
In other words, the meaning of the term ‘terrorism’ is akin to how United States Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart described pornography. In a 1964 case about prosecution of an Ohio theater owner for allegedly showing “pornographic” movies, Stewart wrote “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it …” (Emphasis added)
Those of us with common sense know terrorism when we see it. Like — say, for instance — intentionally driving a pick-up into a crowd of people, then getting into a shoot-out with police when they come for you.
So when that scenario occurs, and an FBI spokesperson announces publicly there is no reason to believe it was an act of terrorism, there are only two explanations: One, that the FBI was disseminating to the public without any knowledge of the facts; Or, two, the FBI was dissembling (pretending with intention to deceive) to the public.
Given the recent track record of the FBI – i.e. the ‘Trump-Russia hoax’ and ‘Hunter Biden laptop scandal’, for just the two most prominent — you can, again, decide for yourself. Is the New Orleans pronouncement simply FBI incompetence, or is this further evidence of what appears to be a partisan political agenda, to wit: attempting to cover the current administration’s ass for the southern border fiasco?
Would the FBI intentionally mislead the public, rather than acknowledge this appears to have been a terrorist act committed by a middle-eastern male who crossed our southern border illegally?
I occasionally interact with a retired FBI agent who himself interacts with other retired agents. According to my contact, the consensus among the retirees is that January 20 can’t come to soon — nor can getting Kash Patel confirmed as FBI director, and Pam Bondi confirmed as Attorney General.
(Full disclosure: I’ve met Pam Bondi twice. Once when we were both Florida state prosecutors, and once when she was Florida Attorney General. The partisans in the FBI may want to update their resumes — or even consider retaining their own lawyers.)
This latest episode illustrates there needs to be serious housecleaning at the FBI — to get rid of the incompetence, and political hacks. Having spent a career in law enforcement, I say without reservation that there is no place for either if the public is to have any respect for the rule of law.
Justice was swiftly meted out in New Orleans when those officers shot the pick-up driver dead in the street.
Now let’s restore the concept of ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ to federal law enforcement — beginning with the FBI.
EDITOR’S NOTE as of January 4: The driver and suspect has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen, and Army Veteran from Texas. Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, an Army spokesperson is quoted as telling CNN. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant. Though assistant special agent Alethea Duncan previously told the press that the FBI believed Jabbar had help in carrying out his attack, the FBI said on Thursday they thought that Jabbar acted alone in an “act of terrorism.”