Rank-and-file FBI agents dismayed, ‘embarrassed’ by bureau’s handling of New Orleans terror attack

Emergency services attend to the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ Canal and Bourbon Street on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File) more >
By Kerry Picket - The Washington Times - Saturday, January 4, 2025
FBI agents say the bureau’s first response to the New Year’s Day terrorist massacre in New Orleans’ French Quarter was disastrous and another reason why the Senate can’t move fast enough to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the agency.
According to several agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the FBI failed to execute a comprehensive counter-terrorism plan when Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar of Texas, an Army veteran, rammed a pickup truck with 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 bureau decorum and inexplicably declared the attack not to be terrorism and that the bureau failed to follow basic procedures during the investigation.