By Ryan Andrew | United States

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is facing backlash from millions of Americans and politicians for not acting on the tips regarding the Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Prior to the shooting, the FBI had been warned about the mental instability of Cruz.

The 19-year-old had even claimed that he was going to be a “professional school shooter” in a YouTube comment on August 24th, 2017. Ben Bennight, the man who owned the account the comment was left on, tipped off the FBI about Cruz, citing the comment as evidence.

The FBI came out in a statement admitting that they ignored the tip, saying that it “should have been assessed as a potential threat to life.” instead “no further investigation was conducted.”

The result of this has been the FBI getting attacked repeatedly by politicians, journalists, and everyday citizens all around the nation. In a February 17th tweet, President Donald Trump slammed the FBI by saying, “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter.”

He continued on to blame this on the fact that they are “…spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign…” This is obviously Trump’s way of attempting to make the FBI move on from the long-lasting Russia investigation. However, Florida Governor Rick Scott has also called for the resignation of FBI Director Cristopher Wray saying that “acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it.”

All of this combined has lead many Republicans in Congress to really begin questioning Wray and the FBI’s investigation into Russia. Many share the feeling with Trump that had the FBI not been so focused on the Russia investigation, they may have had more time to focus on domestic issues such as looking into the tips regarding school shooter Nikolas Cruz, and perhaps preventing this shooting before it happened.

No matter how you feel about the Russia Investigation, it can be agreed that the FBI is in trouble as of right now. With Trump feeling dissatisfied and once again looking to shake things up, the FBI should be worried.

The President has made some both eye-brow raising but also very valid points when it comes to how the FBI handled the Cruz tip but also regarding the possible end of the Russia Investigation. Not much is clear right now but one thing is for sure; the FBI must clean up its act.

Image from The Intercept.