Opinion
By Steve Nicklas, 11-27-23
With long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, Nicole Parker doesn’t look like a conventional criminal investigator – who asks unconventional questions.
Parker is a former special agent for the Miami office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In her frequent television appearances, she looks more like a news anchor than an expert guest. But don’t let appearances fool you.
The recent politicization of the FBI drove her to an early retirement. While on TV, she routinely questions whether the FBI is allocating resources in the necessary places, toward terrorism and school shootings and serious crime.
Instead, the FBI is reportedly investigating outspoken parents, or Catholic churches, or political opponents of the current administration. While pushing social justice, instead of criminal justice. To which Parker bristles.
“Their No. 1 focus for two-and-a-half to three years is Jan. 6 Capitol violence,” Parker says, “and now is the time I hope they’re dedicating resources to foreign terrorist groups, and what’s happening at the southern border. We have no idea who’s in our country.”
Prior to Thanksgiving weekend, a CBS report identified terror alerts around New York state. Nothing happened in New York City, the epicenter of holiday celebrations. However, a car explosion at the Rainbow Bridge along the New York-Canada border appeared at first to be terrorism.
Initially, it was reported a car driven by two unidentified people contained massive amounts of explosives. Later, the report changed to a husband and wife recklessly driving their car toward the Rainbow Bridge, near Niagara Falls, with no explosives onboard. The car went airborne and was completely incinerated from the crash. The explosion was so powerful that the engine block separated from the car.
In coverage of the explosion, respected Fox Business reporter David Asman said “the problem here is Americans have lost a lot of trust” about what they’re told by federal officials.
In response to Asman’s comments, former Treasury official Monica Crowley cited “a collapse of any kind of trust in our institutions or in authority – because we’ve been lied to for so long.”
As the reports on the crash changed rapidly, and dramatically, Crowley said “now it looks like they’re kind of trying to soft pedal an initial terrorism assessment.”
Nonetheless, terrorism is lurking as the geopolitical environment has imploded around the world. And through the chaos, Parker can see danger as clearly as the Manhattan skyline. Thus, she has cautionary words.
“Now is the time to be extremely vigilant, on high alert, and keep your head on a swivel,” Parker says, as holiday festivities unfold with tree lightings, parades, ceremonies. “There are going to be a plethora of events. And there is nothing more than a terrorist would like to cause than chaos, violence, destruction and death at these events that celebrate religious freedom in the United States.”
Parker resigned as a special agent in 2022, after 13 years with the FBI. Ironically, she worked alongside two former FBI agents who now live in Fernandina Beach. They resigned for similar reasons as Parker, following the Jim Comey fiasco over Hillary Clinton’s classified emails.
Among many criminal cases, Parker investigated the infamous Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, which is near Miami. From her worthy perspective, she sees implications for major U.S. cities this holiday season.
“There is a decrease in law enforcement because of this defund-the-police movement, and all of this nonsense that’s been going on for the last few years,” Parker says. “Yet there’s an increase in threats to Americans.”
Steve Nicklas is the managing partner of Nicklas Wealth Management in Fernandina Beach. He is also an award-winning columnist. His columns regularly appear in weekly newspapers in Northeast Florida and in Southeast Georgia, and on his website at www.SteveNicklasMarketplace.com. He has published a book, “All About Money,” of his favorite columns from the past 20 years. The book is available on Amazon. He has also done financial reports for area radio stations and for National Public Radio in Jacksonville. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 904-753-0236.)
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
