Washington — Members of the House Homeland Security Committee are set to be briefed by the FBI Thursday morning on the attack in New Orleans, in which authorities say a man intentionally drove a pickup truck into a crowd in the French Quarter on New Year’s Day.
The Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division David Scott will brief the committee members and staff, along with members of the Louisiana congressional delegation, in a call on Thursday morning, according to a committee aide.
The attack, which officials said left at least 14 people dead and injured dozens of others, is being investigated as an act of terrorism, the FBI said. Flying from the truck’s rear bumper was a black ISIS flag. The FBI has identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old from Texas, as the man driving the vehicle. Jabbar had “posted videos to social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill,” President Biden said Wednesday.
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The FBI is leading the investigation, and Mr. Biden said in a statement that he has directed his administration to “ensure every resource is available as federal, state, and local law enforcement work assiduously to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible and to ensure that there is no remaining threat of any kind.”
Democratic Rep. Troy Carter, who represents the district and serves on the Homeland Security Committee, said on “CBS Mornings” that he believes New Orleans is secure, citing the FBI’s assessment. He said the area has been swept and an exhaustive search has been conducted throughout the downtown area.
“There have been a number of leads that are being acted upon, and like any other terrorist event, you can never be too careful, so our caution is to make sure that we leave no stone unturned as it relates to the investigation,” Carter said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Fox News Thursday morning that he had spoken with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Merrick Garland, noting that “there are many, many FBI agents that are on the ground that have been dispatched in New Orleans” who are looking at “every possible angle.”
“We are trusting that that partnership between the federal and state authorities will bring us the answers that we need,” Johnson added.
Rep. Mike Waltz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for his national security advisor, said on Fox News that intelligence indicators need to be examined. Although the attacker was born in the U.S., Waltz said that “the entire world knows that we have an open border” and “they intend to hit us, and they are pushing people into our interior to do just that.”
Waltz said that if the U.S. is investigating “internally at ourselves, we can’t be defending ourselves abroad.”
The FBI’s investigation is ongoing. A U.S. official familiar with the investigation told CBS News on Thursday that the FBI now believes the attacker may not have acted with accomplices.
