‘They were hiring idiots’

Former FBI agent Nicole Parker explains how DEI split the agency and led to disaster: ‘They were hiring idiots’

President Trump’s heralded decision to make DEI DOA couldn’t come a moment too soon for Nicole Parker.

The so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiative was a boondoggle that wrought incalculable damage across every sphere of employment in the country.

No one knows that better than Parker, a former FBI special agent of 12 years who described how a civil war brewed inside the once-venerable agency, with “lines drawn” between two clashing factions she termed “FBI 1 versus FBI 2.”

One side represents “integrity, meritocracy and protecting the American people” while the other force pushes “personal agendas and identity politics, DEI and politically motivated cases” in lieu of serious crime investigations and “the upholding of law and order replaced by performative posturing.”

By the time she left Wall Street to join the FBI in 2010 at age 32, Parker writes in her new book, “The Two FBIs: The Bravery and Betrayal I Saw In My Time At the Bureau,” that she saw segments of the bureau “becoming increasingly obsessed with diversity,” with breathless announcements about new clubs, meetings and “other diversity events.”

A mere three years later, Parker described the newly formed “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” and “Diversity Advisory Committee” and by 2015, “diversity” was added as a core value of the bureau — which she claimed had nothing to do with “protecting the US from terrorist attacks” and combating threats that should have been priorities at the heart of the agency.

The declaration, “We know that a more diverse workforce allows us to connect with and maintain the trust of the American people” even appeared on the agency’s public website. 

While standards “deteriorated” during the era of President Barack Obama and bureau Director James Comey, Parker claimed, under President Joe Biden and Director Christopher Wray “it really amped it up” and “morale took a serious hit.”

“Under the Biden administration, they were hiring idiots,” Parker bluntly claimed to The Post. “Hiring standards dropped and it was noticeable, lowering the standards to meet quotas.”

It was all part of an insidious apparatus that degraded the agency to which she devoted more than a decade of her life.

In addition to being the agent in charge of the Parkland school shooting for the bureau, doing the death notifications, Parker worked high-profile investigations, specializing in human trafficking, violent crimes, active shooting situations and manhunts — until, after much soul-searching, she ultimately walked away in October 2022.

Days before the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre that saw 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parker described a diversity event at the bureau — and how Wray’s priority seemed to be on that, rather than taking tips.

“I had to tell shattered parents that their child was dead when it could have been stopped,” she told The Post.

“My blood was boiling. What if instead of focusing so much time  and energy on diversity, such as the Diversity Agent Recruitment (DAR) event that Director Wray had attended nine days before, only twenty-seven miles south of the Parkland killing spree location, he had prioritized hiring the best and brightest and making sure that they were properly trained to know how to document a tip that might have saved seventeen lives? 

“In my mind, the improper prioritization of diversity might have cost those lives,” she writes.

For Parker — a Texas native and former hedge fund exec who was traumatized by witnessing 9/11 from the World Financial Center (Brookfield Place) — it was a tale of two FBIs, essentially one good, one sinister.

She described “FBI 1” as “honorable patriots working hard protecting Americans, upholding the Constitution in a fair and unbiased manner, working legit investigations and fighting real crime.”

The insidious FBI 2, in sharp contrast, is the “antithesis” of their brethren. They are described as FBI members who “abuse their law enforcement power to push their political and social agendas,” and those who are “self-promoters in leadership positions” either at headquarters in DC or executive management nationwide.

FBI 2’s “shameful actions have destroyed the bureau’s once stellar reputation,” she says.

The DEI scourge is responsible for more FBI failures than people realize, she said.

“There are many people who are highly incompetent, who aren’t where they should be based on merit, and that’s dangerous,” Parker, who was based in the Miami Field Office, contended. “And when your focus is not on the proper priorities, the safety of Americans, people get hurt.”

Her best friend, Laura Schwartzenberger, a 43-year-old married mom of two, was a former special agent SWAT operator who was killed when she was shot in the head alongside a fellow agent while executing a search warrant on a child predator in Florida on February 2, 2021.

“There was no SWAT support for her. They were not deliberately sending SWAT resources for child predators like they were for January 6th misdemeanors,” alleged Parker, referring to prosecutions over the 2021 storming of the US Capitol and adding that the problems were bubbling for years. “Between DEI, social justice warriors, political weaponization and lazy employees, the FBI’s issues did not start overnight.”

With the January 6 “obsession” and the FBI’s 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid “scam” to seize classified documents, Parker said she’s far from the only “FBI 1” agent who’s walked away.

“As soon as I left, people started reaching out to me, saying, ‘Enough is enough,’” she claimed.

“People think that the bureau just went after conservative Americans outside [the agency],” Parker said, adding that with cues like the COVID-19 vaccine that often fell along political lines, FBI 2 “would go after you internally. They were picking on employees too.”

“They would go after people that stood up to them internally. It was like career suicide for many people that stood up to the Biden administration,” she claimed.

Watching the recent Brown University attack in which two students were killed by a masked gunman, Parker claimed, “DEI causes death — and that’s what you saw at Brown,” adding that the tragedy could have been prevented “if they focused on proper cameras and security and not being woke.” Parker quoted a campus security guard as saying, “I’m focused on this ‘Free Palestine’ thing.”

The shooter in that case, Claudio Neves Valente, was found dead by authorities a few days later.

She added that Brown “was more concerned about woke movements and making ‘safe spaces’ on their campus so everyone could feel loved and included. And freeing Palestine rather than addressing their on-campus threat risk and safety vulnerabilities such as no cameras on an entire section of the school.”

Still, Parker, who’s now a Fox News Media contributor, is confident the bureau can earn back the public’s trust and turn itself around — with time.

Under Trump, she predicted that “FBI 2” “will be eradicated as its political and social weaponization is dismantled and those responsible for its downfall will be held accountable. The FBI will regain Americans’ and FBI employees’ trust and return to excellence. There will no longer be two FBIs,” she writes, adding that current Director Kash Patel is focused on “keeping America safe.”

“There will be one honorable FBI exemplifying fidelity, bravery, and integrity. That is what our current, retired, and fallen FBI heroes’ legacies deserve. Most of all, that is what Americans deserve,” she added.

https://nypost.com/2025/12/31/us-news/former-fbi-agent-nicole-parker-explains-how-dei-split-the-agency-and-led-to-disaster/

By 

Doree Lewak

Published Dec. 31, 2025, 4:22 p.m. ET