President Joe Biden issued a statement last week in which he condemned the horrifying attack in New Orleans that left 14 people dead.

Yet although Biden said that the FBI would take "the lead" in investigating what took place, there is something that it appears to be covering up. 

FBI agent: "This is not a terrorist event"

As Breitbart noted, America's largest federal law enforcement agency has refused to explain why one of its officials initially denied that the tragedy was an act of terrorism.

That claim was made by New Orleans field office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan as she spoke with reporters in the early morning hours of New Year's Day.

FBI literally photographed the ISIS flag from the truck of the New Orleans terrorist, and still tried to tell us this wasn’t a terrorist attack… pic.twitter.com/BCiZcvXntc

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 1, 2025

"This is not a terrorist event," Duncan asserted before adding, "Uh, what it is right now, is there are improvised explosive devices that was found. Um, and we are working on confirming if it’s a viable device or not."

FBI later acknowledged that attack was an act of terrorism

Those words seemed to baffle many social media users, some of whom pointed to photographs which show that the perpetrator, one Shamsud-Din Jabbar, had flown an ISIS flag on the back of his rented trunk.

"This 'FBI agent' who struggles to get out basic sentences is trying to tell the media that a terrorist with an Isis flag who drives through a crowd of Americans is not a terrorist," conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza wrote in a post on X.

Another X user stated, "FBI literally photographed the ISIS flag from the truck of the New Orleans terrorist, and still tried to tell us this wasn’t a terrorist attack…"

For its part, the FBI later released a statement which acknowledged that Jabbar had carried out an act of terrorism but offered no explanation as to why Duncan had said otherwise.

It read, "The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism. We are aggressively running down all leads to identify any possible associates of the subject."

FBI and Department of Homeland Security issue bulletin

Meanwhile, Fox News reported that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint bulletin to law enforcement agencies on Friday.

"We advise federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government and law enforcement officials and private sector security partners to remain vigilant of potential copycat or retaliatory attacks inspired by this attack and other recent, lethal vehicle-ramming incidents across the globe," the bulletin explained.

"Law enforcement should be aware that in many cases attackers have conducted vehicle-ramming attacks with secondary weapons and may continue the attack with edged weapons, firearms, or IEDs after the vehicle has stopped," it added.