The FBI has had a series of unfortunate incidents regarding negative publicity and complete screw-ups over the past few years, and the New Orleans terror attack was another one added to the list.
According to the Washington Times, a number of the rank-and-file agents of the FBI are reportedly embarrassed and dismayed over the agency's initial handling of the aftermath of the attack, which killed over a dozen people and wounded dozens more.
Some of the agents the outlet cited said they can't wait for the Senate to confirm President-elect Donald Trump's incoming FBI director, Kash Patel, to avoid the ongoing humiliation.
Several agents interviewed by the outlet, who chose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, said the agency had a number of failures regarding the investigation of the New Orleans attack.
The word on the street from the aforementioned anonymous agents paints a scary and disgusting picture of what happened in the aftermath of the attack.
The Washington Times noted:
Several agents who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the FBI failed to execute a comprehensive counterterrorism plan when Shamsud-Din Jabbar of Texas, an Army veteran, rammed a pickup truck carrying an ISIS flag into New Year’s Eve revelers, killing 14 and wounding dozens.
They said the top FBI official on the scene broke with decorum and that the bureau failed to follow basic procedures.
At the crux of the failure and the reason questions have been raised was the reported absence of Lyonel Myrthil, the special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI office, at the time of the attack.
The agency, like every other agency, was well aware of the massive crowds in the popular city due to the New Year's Eve holiday and the college football playoff game -- the Sugar Bowl -- the next day.
The agents who provided the information to the outlet demanded that outgoing FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate leave the agency right away.
"They need to go right now, not only Wray, but Abbate needs to go. This is awful. This is embarrassing. Kash Patel is the person to have in there," one of the anonymous agents said, adding, "He needs to come right now, right away, because these people have to leave."
The FBI's first mistake in the aftermath of the deadly attack was dispatching Alethea Duncan, assistant special agent in charge, to the scene instead of the appropriate leadership.
The Times noted:
Wearing khakis, a blue polo shirt and a nose ring, Ms. Duncan immediately contradicted New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who said at the press conference that her city was “impacted by a terrorist attack.”
"This is not a terrorist event. What it is right now is there were improvised explosive devices that were found, and we are working on confirming if it is viable or not," she said, which later forced the agency to correct her in confirming that it was, in fact, a terrorist attack.
Many across social media echoed the agents' calls for real leadership to take over and do away with the obvious number of unqualified, DEI hires that the agency is currently stocked with.
