FBI Under Fire
FBI field offices willfully violated rules against interacting with known terrorist organizations.
A substantial contingent of FBI agents and resources arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, this week to begin investigating the Westgate Mall attack. The purpose, in part, is to determine if there are links to the Islamic terrorists killed there and American citizens with origins in the region, or if American citizens were indeed involved in that attack. The FBI is being criticized for arriving just three days after the Nairobi assault, when it took three weeks getting on the ground after the Islamic assault in Benghazi. Of course, that criticism is misplaced because the Benghazi delay was political (read: “Democrat obfuscation”), not tactical.
In less favorable news about FBI operations, a Justice Department investigation revealed that certain FBI field offices willfully violated rules against interacting with known terrorist organizations. Of particular interest is the New Haven field office, where agents were allowed to develop and coordinate a diversity-training workshop with members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR has been directly linked to Hamas and was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 trial in which it was proven that charitable front groups in the U.S. were funneling contributions to al-Qaida. The directive to work with CAIR was provided by FBI field office managers and the Bureau’s public outreach arm, the Office of Public Affairs.