How Much of Parkland Fault Belongs to Robert Mueller?

Following 9/11, the pubic was inundated with encouragements, “if you see something, say something,” together with color coded daily terror alerts. This, of course, largely disguised the fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 were already known and the lines of investigation clear, but being covered up based upon the Bush Administration’s long standing ties to the Saudis and the British. The servant of this coverup, according to former Senator Bob Graham, was FBI Director Robert Mueller. Graham says and proves that Mueller “aggressively deceived” Congress’ Joint 9/11 inquiry and the role of the Saudi government and its agents in the murders of almost 3000 Americans on that day.

Mueller did something else in the wake of 9/11. He devoted the entire FBI to intelligence matters with criminal law enforcement assigned a second seat. He privatized the FBI’s tip line, setting up a call center in West Virginia staffed by civilians who handle calls according to scripts and protocols. This avoided FBI agents in field offices having to screen tips.

The tips regarding Victor Cruz, the Parkland shooter, were very explicit. On January 5, a tipster, close to the Cruz family warned a civilian analyst at the FBI’s West Virginia call center that Cruz was a dangerous gun owner who posted disturbing statements and images of rifles on social media with the potential to shoot up a school. According to a transcript of the tip, obtained by the Miami Herald, the tipster said that she was worried about Cruz getting into a school and just shooting the place up. She said, “He is 18 but has the mental capacity of a 12 to 14 year old and started off saying he wanted to kill himself. And then just recently, now he was switched to he wants to kill people.” “I know he is going to explode. . . It’s alarming to see these pictures and to know what he’s capable of doing and what could happen.” The tip center never forwarded the tip to the Miami FBI Field Office or followed it up. Similar red flags were posted repeatedly with local law enforcement who also did not respond. Earlier, Cruz posted on YouTube a comment stating, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter with the handle name “nikolas cruz.” A local FBI field office in Mississippi was called by a bail bondsman who saw the comment, but gave up after their own searches failed to locate Cruz. Google was never contacted, although after the incident it was clear that the name and address for the “nikolas cruz” handle was readily available from them.

The FBI’s former No. 3 in job importance, Chris Swecker described the FBI’s call center prompts as “maddening” particularly if you are urgently attempting to convey a genuine threat in an interview with the Miami Herald. This writer tried out the system yesterday and concurs with Swecker’s analysis. More telling, Swecker said, Mueller’s call center consolidation puts untrained analysts in the firing line of making judgments without any law enforcement investigative experience. “They don’t have the context and the background to recognize the urgency between each phone call.”