A growing number of Americans are losing faith in the efficiency, honesty, and impartiality of the government at various levels, perhaps particularly the federal government. This applies with great force to the FBI, with 61% of independent voters saying they only trust the bureau “some of the time” or hardly ever.” The FBI has not helped itself in the 48 hours since an Islamist terrorist murdered 14 people and injured more than 30 people in New Orleans.
Just hours after Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented Ford F-150 with an ISIS flag on the trailer hitch along a crowded Bourbon Street, evidently to kill as many people as he could, FBI special agent Alethea Duncan took to a podium in New Orleans and confidently said, “This is not a terrorist event.”
Just a few hours later she had to come back to the podium singing a different tune, the one that everyone else already had in mind.
“The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we’re investigating this attack as an act of terrorism,” Duncan said, adding that the FBI did not believe Jabbar “was solely responsible” and the agency was “aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.”
Hours after that, however, FBI Assistant Director Christopher Raia replaced Duncan as lead FBI spokesman, and again, the story changed. While Raia continued to stress that “what happened here in New Orleans was an act of terrorism,” the FBI determined that there was “no indication at this point that anyone else was involved in this attack other than Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.”
Raia shared some important new details, including that the FBI obtained video of Jabbar placing two coolers on Bourbon Street before his attack, both of which had explosive devices in them that the FBI disarmed and neutralized. Raia also revealed that Jabbar posted five videos to his Facebook account after leaving his home in Houston for New Orleans. In these videos, Jabbar explained that he had joined ISIS the previous summer, and while he “originally planned to harm his family and friends,” he decided instead to kill strangers so that headlines would focus on the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.”
Considering the role that Islamic indoctrination played in the attack, should the FBI exclude the possibility that anyone else was involved? The Imam of the mosque Jabbar belonged to in Houston has said, “Jews seek to control the economy wherever they go. That’s why Hitler killed them,” and, “Europeans support Israel because they don’t want Jews back in their countries.” The leadership of the same mosque also told his congregants not to cooperate with law enforcement or speak to the press. Perhaps the FBI should investigate this mosque before making definitive statements about Jabbar not receiving any support for his attack.
This is the same FBI that has been tasked by the Biden administration with searching for nonexistent white supremacists and persecuting the pro-life movement for exercising its First Amendment rights.
Unfortunately, what has emerged at the FBI under President Joe Biden is a pattern of behavior in which supposed threats from some communities are promoted or outright invented while real threats from other communities are minimized or ignored for political reasons.
“I just hope that the FBI and all the agencies involved are fully candid every step of the way,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) recently. “You did see the FBI this morning saying it was not a terrorist attack, which was premature.”
It often seems as though federal agencies are more concerned with message massaging rather than with honesty in giving the public solid information. The public usually understands that acts of violence have been committed by people motivated by political ideas — Islamist or otherwise — before investigators are prepared to admit it as a possibility.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I think what people want are candid answers,” Scalise continued. “You don’t need to sugarcoat this. If there is some uncomfortable things we find along the way, let’s get that information out.”
Scalise and his colleagues in the House should investigate what was behind those original FBI claims that Jabbar was not a terrorist. It is not the FBI’s job to placate the feelings of sensitive communities. It is its job to investigate crime and acts of terrorism, bring the perpetrators to justice, and keep the public informed about their progress along the way. If that means hedging about what is and is not a terrorist attack and whether someone is or is not acting alone, that is fine. However, what should not continue is definitive public statements one hour later, which turn out to be completely wrong hours later, all to avoid giving offense.