Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam said Thursday on Newsmax that he was disappointed with the agency’s operational standards, and he also said political influences have warped recruitment and qualifications.
During an appearance on Newsmax’s “Carl Higbie: Frontline,” Gilliam said he was frustrated over the agency’s failure to adapt to modern challenges. He also said that a lack of innovative thinking is a critical flaw in the FBI’s approach.
“That’s the way they’ve been doing that for a long time, ever since I was in the bureau, back in 2005, all the way back to there. When I got out in 2013, I couldn’t take it anymore,” Gilliam told Carl Higbie when asked why the agency was looking at all the wrong places. “I mean, the reality is they, just like down in New Orleans, a perfect example of what you saw down there, is that the bureau doesn’t think outside the box.”
Gilliam said that the FBI has been under the influence of political ideologies, particularly from the left, which he said have permeated the agency.
“When you add in the mix with that, the political left that has swarmed through all these agencies like a virus, what you get is people who are unrealistic,” Gilliam said. “They are not qualified for the job, and they recruit other people that are not qualified for the job. And that’s how you end up with this nonsense that you just talked about.”
The discussion follows a New Year’s Day terror attack where a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans, killing 10 and injuring approximately 35 people. After plowing through the pedestrians, the truck collided with a construction vehicle, the New Orleans Police Department reported.
The FBI, despite initially conducting a manhunt to look for his accomplices, said that Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect behind the attack in New Orleans, acted alone. Authorities said that Jabbar drove a Ford pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street.
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