Sheriff David Clarke Schools the FBI On How to Do Intelligence Work

Sheriff David Clarke, the outspoken lawman from Milwaukee County, supports and defends his fellow officers. But he’s not afraid to criticize them, either. He recently appeared on Stuart Varney’s show to talk about what went wrong in Orlando, Florida.

Federal law enforcement dropped the ball “big time” when it came to Omar Mateen, the Muslim terrorist who murdered 50 people and injured at least 53 others at a homosexual nightclub in Orlando.

“Look, this is not a perfect world,” the sheriff said. “But we’re making the same mistakes, Stuart, as we did pre-911, with the planning of the 911 terrorist attacks. Remember the Phoenix memo, where they were alerted to guys taking flight lessons, and the administrators of the FBI told them to leave it alone, to go away?”

Sheriff Clarke said he’s tired about hearing how these people are on the radar screen after they attack.

“The [big] problem…is that we don’t have a clear and coherent domestic intelligence strategy with the right agency involved here in the United States to prevent, preempt, and to otherwise disrupt terror attacks before they happen.”

The sheriff said he’s not being hypercritical of the FBI, but they are the lead domestic intelligence agency. “I think they’re the wrong one,” he added.

Where the FBI falls short is they look for probable cause to make an arrest to prosecute. That’s not intelligence work, Sheriff Clarke. Intelligence work focuses on “identifying the threats, establishing their capabilities” and determining whether the people are planning an attack. Let the decision-maker know in enough to time to preempt the attack.