See Something, Say Something…but, then, Nothing

In an all-too-frequent occurrence, we once again hear that a mass murderer was on the “radar screen” of the Federal Bureau of Investigation before the dastardly deed was done. San Bernardino, Garland, Texas, Las Vegas and, now, Parkland, Florida. The continuing saga of FBI knowledge before the fact, then nothing is done to stop the brutal murder of innocents in the wake of such knowledge. Even the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the Boston marathon attack were not without prior knowledge on the part of the FBI.

We keep hearing the same mantra, “See something, say something,” but, then…nothing.

Most recently, the FBI knew that Nikolas Cruz was in possession of firearms. They knew he had a sick penchant for killing animals. They knew he had several occurrences where police had been called to his home, where he had been expelled from his high school following violent acts perpetrated on his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, all after having been prohibited from entering the school with a backpack for fear of deadly devices he might bring to school. His pathos was well known by student and teacher alike, and the FBI even knew about his disturbing posts on Facebook, and that he had declared in a video that his goal in life was to become a professional school shooter, thanks to a tip they received from a concerned citizen in Louisiana. All of this knowledge, and yet…nothing…no co-ordination with the FBI office in Miami, no alerts to local and state police.

Seventeen lay dead, fourteen students and three school staffers, all because nothing was done to stop a sick and twisted individual from planning and executing the deadliest school shooting in Florida history, one that rivaled Sandy Hook and Columbine in its infamy.

We keep hearing about how great and how dedicated the rank and file of FBI agents are in the execution of their jobs, and yet corruption and mismanagement from above is what keeps them from doing their jobs. Several years ago, citizen complaint and advisory calls phoned into local FBI field offices, were re-routed to a central call center located in West Virginia in an effort to co-ordinate such calls to one data center and track such calls on a national basis. The only problem with that strategy is the failure for forwarding these alerts to local FBI offices and law enforcement- assets which, if informed and deployed, might well have prevented these heinous acts from happening.

Yesterday, Friday the 16th of February, we heard from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that thirteen Russian nationals, and three firms with which they have been associated, were indicted on charges related to interference with political campaigns going back to 2014. In the indictment, Rosenstein stressed that no American citizen actively or inactively took conscious part in this interference, and that any involvement by Trump campaign associates was the result of deceptive tactics used by the Russians who, hiding behind fake social media profiles appearing to be American citizens, attempted to disrupt the election process by concurrently staging pro-Trump rallies and anti-Trump protests, sometimes even on the same day. Repeatedly, Rosenstein stressed that nothing in the indictment suggested any willful collusion on the part of any American citizen, which also suggests that alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign remains nothing more that a pipe-dream by Democrats, NeverTrump Republicans and the mainstream media to bring down Donald Trump. The fact is that these efforts on the part of Russians reach back well before Trump’s candidacy and ascertain no connection with Trump or his campaign. It also reveals an Obama administration, which knew about this tampering, did nothing to stop it in the self-assurance that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency. Had Mrs. Clinton won the presidency, none of this would have been known and no Mueller probe would have taken place.

So, while the FBI has so busied itself, illegally pursuing FISA warrants against Trump campaign associates, all based on a fake dossier purchased by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, they have failed to adequately do their primary job of investigating real domestic violent crime and preventing its occurrence. Essentially, the FBI at its highest levels has become a political investigative body rather than a criminal investigative body- an American version of a Soviet era politburo, rather than a crime-fighting force as it had once been known.

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has demanded the resignation of Trump’s FBI Director, Christopher Wray, as the result of the inaction taken by the FBI prior to the school shooting in that state. While Wray might have the potential of becoming the FBI’s “fall guy,” as the result of this latest failure to connect the dots with regard to the killer Cruz, the problems associated with the lack of communications and inter-agency cooperation go back to the years leading up to 9/11, begging the question, “Why do we have an FBI in the first place?”

This much is true. Changes- fundamental, organizational and actual- must take place in both the Justice Department and in the FBI. If neither Attorney General Jeff Sessions nor FBI Director Christopher Wray can effect such changes, then both should go, sooner rather than later.

-Drew Nickell, 17 February 2018

© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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