had can radicalized. they d been listening to him. he went away for six months to russia, and our government had that information. how is that not a breakdown? well, that s what i just said. you can say whether the investigation based on that information was thorough enough and that can be looked at. it s a separate issue to say that the agencies don t talk to each other or the information is being stovepiped or people don t have access to each other s databases. that part is not true. to lou polumbo, retired investigator with the nassau department. you heard me talk to tom fuentas about agencies. i m not picking on tom. i ve heard many people voice the same opinion he has. whenever you had to work with the fbi or the feds, how was the communication? was it always smooth and sharing? and sharing of information? well, the simple truth, don, is that there is a cultural disconnect with our federal
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agencies. our federal agencies traditionally do not share or there s a reluctancy to share information at times with local authorities. i think one thing that people have to understand, with our federal agencagencies, for exam like the secret service and fbi, they routinely polygraph their special agents. there is no mechanism if place like that in local law enforcement. tom made reference to jttf where these individuals are deputized so to speak and they sit in the same rooms. and i understand everything that he s talking about. but i do know one thing. that the way to maintain the integrity of your investigation is to cover information. and they do it and it s the right thing to do. the problem is, on occasion, it walks us into scenarios similar to the one that we re in right now. i say this to you. unequivocally. the finest investigative team that exists on the planet is our fbi. without question. but there is a culture with the fbi that is very, very tight and i respect it.