The Justice Department’s independent watchdog criticized the FBI’s “weaknesses” in identifying homegrown violent extremists through its counterterrorism assessments.
The 47-page report released on Wednesday, which highlighted failures in preventing high-profile “known wolf” attacks such as the Fort Hood murders, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Pulse nightclub attack, follows an examination of the FBI’s efforts from 2012 through 2018 to identify and stop “global jihad-inspired individuals” radicalized inside the United States without specific direction from a particular foreign terrorist organization.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found “weaknesses existed in the FBI’s counterterrorism assessment process” and determined the FBI did not adequately carry out a bureauwide review of closed counterterrorism assessments to see if previously investigated possible terrorists reemerged as threats.
The watchdog concluded the FBI “should identify and address inconsistencies in its reevaluation of closed assessments” and “must address emerging challenges to assess potential HVEs,” or homegrown violent extremists.
The investigation focused on the counterterrorism “incidents and assessments” within the FBI’s Guardian System, the bureau’s threat-tracking database. His team reviewed roughly 200 appraisals, interviewed over 100 FBI officials, and conducted audits associated with seven FBI field offices. The FBI agreed to all of Horowitz’s recommended fixes.
“The FBI has acknowledged that various weaknesses related to its assessment process may have impacted its ability to fully investigate certain counterterrorism assessment subjects who later committed terrorist attacks in the United States,” Horowitz wrote. “Following these attacks, the FBI made various efforts to evaluate and improve its assessment process. However, it has not ensured that identified areas for improvement were formalized and implemented into enhanced policies and procedures.”
Though the total numbers were redacted, Horowitz said the bureau found 6% of its assessments required additional investigative steps, but, because of inefficient FBI oversight, nearly 40% of the closed assessments that were later identified as requiring additional investigative action weren’t addressed for 18 months. Some delayed inquiries resulted in the FBI opening full counterterrorism investigations.
The DOJ watchdog’s audit pointed to six successful attacks in the U.S. “by individuals who the FBI had previously assessed or investigated and who were subsequently categorized as HVEs.”
The first was the Fort Hood attack of Nov. 5, 2009, carried out by U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who killed 14 people, including one unborn child, in what the Pentagon controversially classified as “workplace violence.” The Senate called it “the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.” The FBI opened a counterterrorism lead on Hasan on June 17, 2009, but closed it shortly thereafter, assessing Hasan didn’t pose a threat to national security. Hasan was in communication with Anwar al Awlaki, a former Virginian imam who joined al Qaeda and was killed in a U.S. drone strike in September 2011.
The second was the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15, 2013, by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that killed three and wounded hundreds at the race’s finish line. The FBI opened an assessment on Tamerlan in March 2011 but, on June 24, 2011, it was closed after determining he didn’t pose a threat to national security.
The third was the Garland, Texas, terrorist attack on May 30, 2015, with Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi targeting a “Draw Mohammed” event, where the duo showed up and opened fire on a police car at a security checkpoint, wounding guards before being killed by law enforcement. The FBI investigated Simpson from Aug. 1, 2006, through Nov. 7, 2014, before closing the case, followed by various Guardian System incidents being looked at again in February 2015 before the investigation was reopened on March 2, 2015.
The fourth was the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack of June 12, 2016, carried out by Omar Mateen that killed 49 people and wounded dozens of others. Mateen pledged his allegiance to then-Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. It was the deadliest attack by a single shooter in U.S. history until the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1, 2017, which killed 58 people. The FBI opened a case on Mateen on May 20, 2013, based on statements indicative of radicalized ideology, but the case was closed on March 12, 2014, after the bureau determined the predicated information was unfounded.
The fifth was the New York and New Jersey bombings in September 2016 carried out by Ahmad Rahami, whose pipe bombs left nearly three dozen people wounded. The government argued Rahimi was motivated to carry out the attack by terrorist propaganda. The FBI had opened a Guardian System assessment on him on Aug. 27, 2014, but that was closed on Sept. 19, 2014, when no nexus to terrorism could be determined.
And the sixth was the Fort Lauderdale airport attack on Jan. 6, 2017, by Esteban Santiago, who fatally shot five people. Santiago was an Iraq War veteran who visited the FBI’s Anchorage field office in November 2016 and claimed the CIA was controlling his mind and forcing him to watch ISIS videos online. The FBI opened an assessment on Nov. 8, 2016, which was closed three weeks later, concluding he did not pose a national security threat. Santiago was taken to a psychiatric institute for evaluation.
Horowitz said, “Through its counterterrorism investigations, the FBI told us that it has disrupted a substantial number of HVE attempts to conduct terrorist attacks and travel overseas to join FTOs” and that, from 2015 to 2018, “it arrested 65 individuals” in the U.S. planning ideologically motivated attacks. These included thwarting an ISIS-inspired pressure cooker attack by Alexander Ciccolo in 2015, a planned explosives attack by Marlonn Hicks, an ISIS-inspired lone wolf attack by Derrick Thompson, an attempted terrorist attack by Mahin Khan in 2016, and an ISIS-linked would-be mass shooting by Everitt Jameson in 2017.
