My fellow Americans it boggles the mind at what our government does. The FBI is admitting that the alleged radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki returned to the U.S. in October 2002, was detained and then released from federal custody. This is the first time the agency has admitted this.
Why is it important? Well, according to our government this man has been tied to twenty-six cases of terrorism since September 2009, according to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. He is also an American citizen who was targeted for assassination on foreign soil without arrest or trial.
While he is claimed to be the man who counseled Maj. Nidal Hasan who murdered over a dozen military personnel, our own government had him, but let him go only to assassinate him several years later in a drone strike. Now this is beyond bizarre considering our government is thinking about punishing an ICE agent for simply doing his job and arresting an illegal immigrant.
Now we have Republicans calling for hearings on the matter. “I really want to get to the bottom (of this),” said Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the committee that has oversight of the FBI.
The committee was already holding hearings on the Webster report on the FBI’s failures that lead up to the Ft. Hood terrorist attack. Rep. Wolf made mention of the fact that the Webster report made absolutely no mention of the 2002 incident.
“We’re going to send a letter on this. If we can, we’re going to get a hearing, and if we have to, we may even subpoena the thing,” he said. I wonder if he remembers how well that worked out when Congress tried to subpoena documents from the Justice Department.
Fox News reports,
Al-Awlaki was detained at New York City’s JFK airport because a customs database flagged him based on an outstanding arrest warrant. Giuliano, under intense questioning by Wolf, also admitted Wednesday there were discussions between an FBI agent and the U.S. attorney in Colorado about the U.S.-born cleric’s re-entry and the warrant.
“Yes, sir, there was a dialogue, as there always will be,” Giuliano replied. “If a case agent has a case on somebody that is coming into the country, the system is triggered and set up so that there will be a call to that case agent.”
Former FBI agents say there are only likely two explanations: The bureau let the cleric into the country to track him for intelligence, or the bureau wanted to work with him as a friendly contact.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Giuliano could not explain a significant time discrepancy. Al-Awlaki was being held in the early-morning hours of Oct. 10, 2002, when FBI agent Wade Ammerman told customs agents that “the warrant … had been pulled back.” But that couldn’t have happened while al-Awlaki was in custody, since it was only 5:40 a.m. in Colorado where the arrest warrant originated and where the courts had yet to open for the day.
Guiliano went on to say,
“If a prosecutor at that time, regardless of whether a call was made or not, looks at the evidence and decided there was not enough to be able to arrest that individual, the warrant would be dropped. I assure you … if we could have incarcerated al-Awlaki, we would have.”
The hearing also brought to light the fact that al-Awlaki was under a full FBI investigation when he was invited at an executive dining room at the Pentagon in February of 2002. During the hearings, Rep. Wolf asked Giuliano, “Why was al-Awlaki approved by (Defense Department Security) to speak at the Pentagon?”
“Sir, I can’t, I can’t speak for DOD. I can’t answer that question,” Giuliano replied.
Now stop and think about this for just a moment. This is the same government that claims that they have stopped all sorts of terrorism through torture and yet they invite a guy, who is an American citizen, they call a “terrorist” to actually speak at the Pentagon while he is being investigated by the FBI, they detain him a few months later and let him go, accuse him of being tied to over two dozen terrorist attacks and then assassinate him on foreign soil with the use of a drone.
Now look, al-Awlaki may have been a terrorist, we are having to take our government’s word for that and personally their word is not very trustworthy. However, what is amazing is that they can have these guys right under their noses and we’re not talking that they are just under surveillance in New Jersey or something. We’re talking about they are actually invited by our government to speak at the Pentagon!
Obviously what this demonstrates is a complete and utter incompetency. Just months, literally months, after September 11, while you and I were being robbed of our rights, the same government doing that was allowing someone that they claim was a terrorist to speak at the headquarters of our national defense. Seriously, if this kind of thing is going on and it is and has been for a long time, then we are in dire straits in America. This is one reason why the cry for an investigation by Michele Bachmann and other members of Congress should be taking place immediately, not poo pooed, and a full evaluation and cleaning of the FBI’s house is in order.
