The U.S. government has prosecuted more than 800 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never committed an act of violence.
Harlem Suarez was an unlikely jihadi.
When he was born in Cuba, Suarez had blue skin. His fragile brain had been deprived of oxygen, a tragedy his family points to in explaining his lifelong social and intellectual challenges. As a child, Suarez also suffered several significant head injuries, including being struck by a brick and falling off motorcycles without a helmet on. His parents brought him to Key West, Florida, in 2004, when he was 12 years old. He struggled in the public education system and dropped out of high school. He then took odd jobs in Key West — stocking store shelves, cleaning up restaurants, working in kitchens. Even after more than a decade in the United States, he spoke English without confidence.
In 2015, seeing reports about the Islamic State on cable news, Suarez became intrigued by the terrorist group, he explained to an FBI informant. He was 23 years old at the time and still living in Key West. He was slender and fit, with tattoos covering his chest, stomach, and arms. He wore his brown hair cropped close to his scalp, and a goatee covered the bottom of his chin.
Suarez began to identify as Muslim and gave himself an Arabic name: Almlak Alaswd, which translates to “dark angel.” He said he wanted to be part of ISIS, but he knew little about the group or its rival organizations. He thought Osama bin Laden had founded ISIS, and he admitted to an FBI informant that he didn’t know what Hamas was or how the group was different from ISIS.
A U.S. military officer in the inactive reserves, Skaik was born in the Middle East and moved to the U.S. at age 16. He was fluent in Arabic, his first language, and he spoke English with a flawless American accent. When the FBI recruited Skaik in late 2014, he was a research assistant at a Florida medical school, and he had ambitions to study to be a doctor. The FBI offered what was essentially a part-time gig posing online as a man sympathetic to and interested in ISIS.
Following FBI instructions, Skaik sent Suarez a Facebook friend request. “Hey, brother, can you add me, please?” Skaik wrote. “I have something extremely important to communicate to you.”
Suarez accepted the friend request. On his profile, Suarez said he lived in Miami. Skaik was just north in West Palm Beach, so not knowing that Suarez was actually in Key West, the informant assumed he and Suarez were practically neighbors.
“It’s good to see someone around here that lives nearby me,” Skaik wrote on Facebook. “A word of advice: I’ve been down your alley and got my accounts taken down numerous times. I would be very careful not to post things onto my account relating to my location. Just an advice from a brother to another. I hope to get to know you.”
Suarez replied by sending Skaik his cellphone number, and they began to exchange text messages. Suarez explained that he wasn’t in Miami but was instead “more down,” referring to the Florida Keys to the south.
“I have a car,” Skaik texted. “We can go to the mosque and train together.”
“I was trying to make timers bomb,” Suarez told him.
The message startled Skaik, he later told a jury. He didn’t anticipate that Suarez would so readily disclose his attempts to a build a bomb. Skaik sent a message to his FBI handler, and Suarez quickly became a priority. Within days, Skaik was making the four-hour drive to Key West. He and Suarez first met in the parking lot of Japanese steakhouse chain Benihana. Suarez drove up on a black and white Yamaha moped. He was wearing black sunglasses and a black, long-sleeve, button-down shirt. “How you doing?” Suarez said, greeting Skaik. Still seated on his moped, Suarez gave the informant a hug. “You really are driving a moped,” Skaik said with surprise.
He and Skaik walked to a wooded area near the Key West airport. Once they were in a secluded spot, Suarez opened his bag and showed off his equipment. He had two body armor vests. He had a handgun. “I show you one of these, brother,” he told Skaik, who secretly videotaped the encounter. “I’ve been getting ready, boy. This shit cost a lot of money.” He then pulled out an AR-15 assault rifle.
Suarez’s small arsenal seemed to confirm the FBI’s initial concerns. But there were also early indications that Suarez might have been more of an aimless big talker than a violent jihadi. He was not familiar with Dabiq, the ISIS magazine that had become essential reading for wannabe ISIS members, and he wasn’t watching ISIS propaganda videos on the dark web but instead on CNN. When the informant asked him how he communicated with people overseas, suggesting that encrypted methods would be most appropriate, Suarez was stumped and seemed to know nothing about encryption.
“Do you use, like, WhatsApp?” the FBI informant asked.
“Well, I use Facebook,” Suarez replied. “I was trying to use, um, how you call this thing — Tweeter?”
“Twitter,” Skaik corrected.
Suarez admitted that he didn’t have a plan of attack, and he also was under the impression that ISIS members had been flowing into the United States through the U.S.-Mexico border by the hundreds with the help of drug cartels. “We ain’t alone, you know?” he told Skaik with authority. “But it’s, it’s hard to find another of us, like — I don’t know why.”
Suarez’s research skills left a lot to be desired. He told the informant there wasn’t a mosque in Key West. (There was one, about 5 miles from his apartment.) And he seemed to know little about Islam. (“I heard that you cannot, you cannot, um, eat pork, right?” he asked Skaik.)
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI’s top priority has been to stop attacks in the U.S. before they occur. The bureau’s primary tool has been a policy of preemption, with undercover agents and informants looking for would-be terrorists before they have the opportunity to strike. Sting operations, in which agents or informants lead targets right up to the brink of a supposed attack and then arrest them, are the hallmarks of the FBI’s preemption policy. Since September 2001, nearly 300 people have been arrested and indicted following terrorism stings in which the FBI provided the means and opportunity necessary for the terrorist plot. A 2014 Human Rights Watch report found that many of these cases resulted in prosecutions against “individuals who perhaps would never have participated in a terrorist act on their own initiative.”
Following that report, as ISIS gained territory in the Middle East and began to distribute its propaganda widely over the internet and with a greater level of sophistication than Al Qaeda had exhibited, the FBI in 2015 refocused much of its counterterrorism resources inside the U.S. on ISIS — on so-called lone wolves who, inspired by ISIS propaganda, move forward with attacks on their own. FBI officials point to Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June 2016, as an example of a successful ISIS lone wolf. To date, 66 ISIS sympathizers have been arrested following FBI stings, some for plotting attacks like Mateen’s and others for conspiring to travel to Syria to join the ranks of ISIS proper.
Suarez presented a conundrum for the FBI. He said he wanted to join ISIS, even though his understanding of the group and its religion was rudimentary. He was actively looking for likeminded people, even though he admitted he wasn’t finding any. He had body armor vests, even though he didn’t have the armored plates that slip inside. He had weapons, including an assault rifle, even though he admitted he didn’t have much ammunition.
“What would you do in a situation like that?” said Peter Ahearn, a retired FBI special agent who headed the field office in Buffalo, New York. “Would you want to be the agent who let this guy go, and then you find out later that he killed people in some attack?”
It’s a valid question. But as the FBI aggressively investigated Suarez, the government’s case turned on its head, with Suarez quickly transforming from the potential hunter into the very real hunted.
Skaik introduced the young man to two undercover agents who played the parts of hardened ISIS members. One claimed to be military-trained; the other said he was a professional bomb maker. Suarez, who realized too late that he was playing with fire in exploring his naive curiosity about ISIS, tried to back out in passive ways, the FBI’s evidence showed. He didn’t return calls and was consistently hard to reach. When the FBI agents asked for money to build a bomb, Suarez claimed to be broke, though he would later say he had $4,000 in the bank. Instead of participating in a bomb plot on the Fourth of July holiday, as he’d discussed with undercover agents, Suarez dodged their calls and instead went out drinking in Key West.
But Suarez was worried about consequences. Skaik knew where Suarez and his parents lived, and Suarez had no reason to doubt these men were from the murderous group he’d been hearing about on cable news. He didn’t know how to get out of the situation he’d created. “I was worried about my parents’ life,” Suarez later told a jury. Suarez said he had concocted a plan to protect himself and his family. If these ISIS guys wanted him to plant a bomb, he’d take that bomb to an isolated beach and detonate it. No one would die; no one would get hurt. He’d fulfill his obligation and protect his family. But it didn’t work out that way.
Over a period of about two weeks, Suarez and Skaik spoke by phone a half-dozen times after meeting in person in Key West. Their rough plan was to film a video for ISIS, post it online, and then launch some sort of bomb attack on the Fourth of July. Skaik said he had an ISIS contact who could provide the bomb.
But while Suarez never outright rebuffed Skaik’s prodding to make a video and move forward with an attack, he was much more concerned about grinding out his day-to-day existence. “I’m kind of like getting stressed out because no job, and bills, bills, they’re still coming and coming,” Suarez told Skaik. Suarez was so hard up that he’d fenced his assault rifle, which he owned legally, to a pawnshop. Suarez was apologetic, because he and Skaik had discussed how he’d hold the AR assault rifle in the ISIS video they were to make. But the hiccup didn’t concern the FBI informant.
Audio: FBI surveillance tape
“Well, that’s OK,” Skaik said. “Then you can, I mean, you can … hold my rifle then. It’s not a big deal.”
In FBI stings, informants often develop close relationships with their targets, either as father figures or close friends. Suarez’s conversations with Skaik suggested the Key West man was lonely, heartbroken, and had few friends. He confided in Skaik that he and his girlfriend had recently broken up after he’d suggested that they have a threesome with her female friend. “She told me that she’s not like that kinda type of (sic) girl,” Suarez told him. He later heard that his ex-girlfriend was in another relationship. “I should not care, ’cause, you know, we wasn’t together, but like, you know, I really, like, love her, you know what I’m saying?”
Skaik responded by lavishing Suarez with praise. He told Suarez that he wanted to join ISIS and always figured he’d have to travel to Syria to do it. Until he’d met Suarez, he said, he’d never imagined he could be an ISIS member here in the United States.
“When I met you, I knew there was something about you,” Skaik told Suarez by phone. “You know, like, I knew that I don’t have to go overseas; I knew you were the real deal, you know, like, I was like, ‘This guy, he’s a leader, he’s a fantastic leader.’ I think you are, man.”
Suarez was similarly effusive about their bromance. “It’s not just me; it’s me and you, you know. We are the brain, and we’re gonna be the bosses, you know; it’s me and you together, you know. You know what I’m saying, like, I cannot do this without you either, you know?”
Photo: Google Street View
“So are we gonna do anything in Key West? Like on the Fourth of July? Is there a lot stuff that goes on over there?” Skaik asked.
“We cannot do — we must do it, like, around here. Homestead.”
“Homestead?” Skaik asked, surprised.
“Yeah, close in the, you know, middle, middle,” Suarez answered.
“Gotcha. What’s in Homestead?”
“I don’t know,” Suarez admitted.
For the video, Suarez dressed in all black and wore a ski mask that covered everything but his eyes. He also wore one of his body armor vests (he still didn’t have the armored plates) and a black and yellow scarf around his neck. Sitting on the floor of the hotel room, a white wall behind him, Suarez read from a rough script that he and Skaik had come up with over lunch at Burger King. Skaik aimed the video camera.
“All right, let’s, let’s try to do one without the paper,” Suarez said, referring to the script.
“OK,” Skaik said.
“Let’s see how, how it goes.”
Suarez then cleared his throat and Skaik began the countdown: “Three, two, one —”
The FBI assisted Harlem Suarez in making a jihadi video. Video: FBI surveillance footage
“I call to all my brothers worldwide to come to USA soil,” Suarez said, beginning his monologue. “Brought your weapons, AK, grenades, bring all your tanks. Shit, hold on. Fuck.”
“OK, you wanna redo it?” Skaik asked.
“Yeah,” Suarez said.
Skaik started the countdown again: “Three, two, one —”
“I call to all my brothers in the worldwide,” Suarez said. “Stand up for our right, our Muslims’ right. Brought your AK and shoot everyone against us. This is the time to fight for the caliphate and create the entire worldwide caliphate.” Suarez paused. “Well?” he asked.
“Good. All right, we recorded this one,” Skaik said. “That’s perfect.”
The FBI had their jihadi video. Now agents needed a bomb plot.
On June 3, 2015, Skaik traveled again to Key West, this time with his supposed ISIS associate, an FBI agent who went by the name Sharif. A decorated soldier who had received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service in Iraq, Sharif had been working undercover for the FBI for about three years. His real name has not been disclosed.
Skaik and Sharif picked up Suarez, and together they went to Denny’s for lunch. Suarez seemed perplexed by Sharif. A black man with an American accent who was not only Muslim, but a member of ISIS? It didn’t make sense to him.
“But wait, wait, wait, you’re American?” Suarez asked him.
“Yeah,” Sharif answered.
“Oh, for real?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.”
Sharif provided his cover story: He was born in the United States, but his father taught him Arabic. He then moved overseas with his family and spent nearly two years in the Middle East before joining the U.S. Army, where he specialized in supplies and logistics.
Suarez and Sharif exchanged small talk. Suarez admitted that he didn’t speak “the Muslim language,” but that he understood what ISIS was standing for and he wanted to be part of the movement.
“I like you, brother,” Sharif told Suarez.
“Thank you,” Suarez replied.
“I told you he’s, uh, very, very smart guy, and, you know, and a great leader too,” Skaik said.
“Very smart, very smart,” Sharif followed.
Suarez insisted to Skaik and Sharif that he wanted to learn how to make bombs; he needed someone to teach him. But the FBI consistently steered him toward a plan in which they’d provide the bomb. “It’s like someone cooking, you know?” Skaik told him over lunch. “Like, I can tell you how to make that pasta, but when you make it, it tastes like shit!”
Even as they were directing Suarez, Skaik and Sharif spoke to him as if he were the leader. “Sheikh, I’m not trying to question your leadership,” Sharif said. Sharif told him that he had a contact who could build a bomb; Suarez just needed to kick in a little bit of money for the materials. “I mean realistically, how much money do you think you have to put toward this, to get them started on this?” Sharif asked him.
“Right now, I don’t have enough,” Suarez said.
“You don’t have, uh — I’m sorry, what’d you say?”
“I don’t have, like — I’m kinda short.”
Suarez explained that not only did he not have money, but he also didn’t have any of his guns. He’d pawned them for cash. Nevertheless, he seemed to be living in a wandering fantasy, constantly talking of different targets, from bombing a police cruiser to taking the bomb to a pool, despite having no clear means to launch any such attack. It appeared to frustrate the undercover FBI agent.
Audio: FBI surveillance tape
“Bro, brother, you, you said, like, cop car, you said open places, you said —” Sharif said, his voice terse.
“No, I know, I know, but uh —” Suarez replied, stumbling over his words.
“When I leave here, you tell me exactly what you want, what you want to do, when you want to do it, how many, how big, how little. I go talk to the brothers.”
Two days later, Skaik called Suarez. He said he saw Sharif at the mosque and his ISIS contact had agreed to make a bomb for Suarez. He also agreed to teach Suarez how to make a bomb after he’d planted the first one, Skaik explained, but he didn’t have many details. “I’m just a middleman,” Skaik said.
“What do you mean?” Suarez asked him. “You’re my partner.”
Skaik laughed uncomfortably.
“You’re my right hand,” Suarez added.
The FBI sting was moving along. But then, out of nowhere, Suarez dropped out of contact for 21 days. He didn’t return calls or respond to text messages.
Audio: FBI surveillance tape
On June 30, 2015, Suarez finally called Skaik. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, man,” Skaik told him. “Like, have you been getting my text messages at all?”
Suarez’s explanation for losing contact was convoluted. His phone’s screen had cracked. He was working a lot. But Skaik moved quickly to endear himself to the target again. “I just miss you,” the informant told Suarez. He explained that he’d stalled Sharif; everything was still fine to move forward. But if Suarez indeed wanted to move forward with the attack, he was showing little initiative. The Fourth of July holiday, when he had talked of planting a bomb, had come and gone. A week later, on July 11, 2015, Suarez called Skaik again and gave him a new phone number on which he could be reached. Sharif called him a couple of days after that and scolded him for being unresponsive.
Audio: FBI surveillance tape
“I went back to the brothers, and I spoke on your behalf, and then I don’t hear from you guys for over a month,” Sharif said. “Listen to me, brother, these guys that I speak to for you are serious guys.”
Suarez was in his bedroom, where a large, wooden four-poster bed was at the center. A Sony flat-screen television was on one wall, next to the door. Behind the door, visible when it was closed, hung an American flag. A toy helicopter rested on a tall dresser. Suarez’s collection of hats, their bills unbent, was on one of the walls. When Sharif called, Suarez’s mother was in the other room. He didn’t want her to hear, so he turned up the volume on the television, which also made it difficult for the undercover FBI agent to hear.
“Hey, turn the TV down some; it’s too loud,” Sharif told him.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Suarez said, complying. “Go ahead.”
“These guys I spoke to for you are serious guys, all right?” Sharif explained. “If you and Mohammed, if you guys are not serious Islamic State brothers, then I don’t know why you guys are bothering me and playing games with me.”
Sharif gave Suarez an assignment. If he wanted to move forward, he needed to purchase a prepaid phone and be reachable at all times on that phone. Suarez did as he was told, but he only paid for a few minutes — barely enough time to hold conversations with Sharif and Skaik. But no matter. The FBI sent Skaik down to Key West again on July 19, 2015, and he delivered a new phone with more than enough minutes to remedy the FBI’s communication problems. In return, Suarez gave Skaik a backpack, nails, his old prepaid phone, and $100 — the items he was instructed to provide for the bomb.
“The video’s almost ready,” Skaik told Suarez. “Like, I put the music, I put the subtitles. It’s pretty fucking cool.”
Suarez would not see Skaik again for more than a year, when the informant arrived in U.S. District Court in Key West to testify against him. Skaik was paid $90,000 for his work with the FBI during this period.
Suarez received a phone call from his supposed bomb maker on July 24, 2015, but only after he’d failed to answer a number of calls from him. The bomb maker said his name was Omar, and he wasn’t happy about having to call so many times. “When I call you from this point on, I expect you to … pick up my phone call,” he said.
Unbeknownst to Suarez, Omar was an inspector with the U.S. Department of Justice. He was born in India, but he spoke perfect American English. His real name has not been revealed. Omar kept the conversation brief and maintained his authority throughout, at times barking orders at Suarez.
“I will be in Key West with your package ready to go for you in Key West on Monday between 10:30 and 11:00. I will call you when I’m —”
“But I’m, uh —” Suarez said, starting to interrupt but seeming to have no argument to make.
“Do not be late,” Omar said. “I’m gonna tell you again: do not be late. When I call you, make sure you are there on time. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes,” Suarez replied.
Video: FBI surveillance footage
Three days later, Omar drove to Key West. A hefty man who wore a blue and black patterned button-down shirt, Omar parked in the lot of an Italian restaurant next to Benihana, where Suarez had first met the FBI’s informant. Suarez hopped in the passenger seat of Omar’s car. Suarez was dressed in a gray hoodie and gray and purple hat. He had a red beach towel wrapped around his neck.
Omar handed Suarez the fake bomb. It was in the backpack Suarez had provided. The nails he’d given Skaik were attached to the side of the bomb. The cellphone he’d provided was wired to the bomb as the trigger mechanism. Omar showed him how to power on the bomb and then how to trigger it by calling the number.
“That’s it, brother,” Omar told him. “And then you just wanna turn it off right over here. Turn off that switch. There you go. Pretty simple, right? And power it all the way down. There you go. Do you have any questions?”
“No,” Suarez answered.
“How do you feel?” Omar asked.
“I’m feelin’ good.”
“Yeah?”
“Kinda exciting,” Suarez added.
As Suarez exited Omar’s car with the fake bomb wrapped inside his red beach towel, FBI agents arrested him. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami charged Suarez with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. “There is no room for failure when it comes to investigating the potential use of a weapon of mass destruction,” FBI Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro said in a prepared statement announcing Suarez’s arrest.
A neuropsychologist who examined Suarez after his arrest found him to be naive, with a tendency to acquiesce to others. In Della Fera’s view, Suarez’s acquiescence made him easy prey for the forceful undercover FBI agents. But it also factored into his decision to plead out. In May 2016, Suarez’s mother called him in jail. He told his mother he believed it was impossible to win the case, but she steamrolled over his instinct to plead guilty, telling him not to think that way and instead to have faith in God. “Although he is in his mid-20s, defendant’s mother treats him like a child,” Della Fera wrote in a court filing.
At his trial, Suarez attempted to explain away his interactions with the FBI by describing how he wanted to learn more about ISIS, which he discovered by watching CNN, but did not know what to do when he found himself in too deep with Sharif and Omar. “I wanted to have a conversation so that I could learn how these people are, what these people think, and how these people act,” Suarez said.
He testified that, after not returning Skaik’s calls, he felt threatened by Sharif’s demands that he get a phone and be responsive. “In a very strong manner, and to me it was a very threatening manner because in my mind they were people from the — they were people from the Islamic group,” Suarez said.
“Could you describe for us why you agreed to meet with Omar on July 27?” Della Fera asked Suarez, referring to do the day he collected the fake bomb.
“I saw that I had no other choice but to keep on doing what they were telling me to do, since I had been trying for many times to get out of that circle, giving them excuses, but they would make me go back, and I had no other choice but to go to that place.”
The jury didn’t accept Suarez’s excuses and convicted him on February 1. U.S. District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez, a former prosecutor who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, gave Suarez the maximum punishment: life in prison.
Suarez’s sentence is indicative of the increasingly harsh punishment ISIS defendants caught up in FBI stings are now facing in federal courts. While federal judges rarely gave life sentences to sting targets allegedly affiliated with Al Qaeda and other groups — the Fort Dix Five being a notable exception — Suarez is one of two ISIS defendants to receive a life sentence in the last year.
In each of these ISIS cases, the other being Justin Nojan Sullivan, the FBI provided the weapons in the supposed plots. Since Suarez was arrested after taking custody of the fake bomb, there’s no way of knowing with certainty what he would have done with it.
During Suarez’s testimony, Della Fera asked him what he planned to do with the bomb the FBI provided.
“The only thing that I thought was to take it to a place where there were no people and detonate it there,” Suarez answered.
“Did you have a place in mind where you might be able to accomplish that?”
“Big Coppitt,” Suarez said, referring to an island next to Key West.
“And is that a crowded area, or is that an isolated area?” Della Fera asked.
“Isolated.”
Correction: September 3, 2017
A previous version of this article stated that a third ISIS defendant, Munir Abdulkader, had been sentenced to life in prison. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison plus life supervision.
Top photo: The FBI assisted Harlem Suarez in making a jihadi video.
The U.S. government has prosecuted more than 800 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never committed an act of violence.
so we have to pay for his prison for life for this bumbling entrapped fool? with a stupid mother
I have been following some of the Intercept’s reporting on various “extremists” who were then lead into plots by the FBI. I did not make it all the way through this one, but it seems pretty obvious that Suarez was actively looking for a way to harm Americans. During his first meeting with the FBI informant, he brought body armor, a handgun and a rifle. He talked about how much he had invested in that gear. The meet was setup in the first place because he wanted to figure out how to build timed bombs.
This case is almost a night and day difference from the Mohamed Osman Mohamud case in Portland. In that case. Mohamed was seemingly half heartedly interested in “jihad” and had even stopped trying to make contact with extremists. The FBI reached out to him and more less recruited him for a bomb plot that they came up with. He went along with it in the end, but it is questionable whether or not he would have gotten there on his own.
Suarez on the other hand was already there. He had weapons, body armor and was looking for knowledge on how to make bombs.
As much as I am critical of the FBI’s questionable tactics and track record of pushing marginal people to the point where they convict themselves, in this case, I think they did a good job of identifying and neutralizing an individual who posed a real threat to the community he lived in.
How can you think the FBI “did a good job” without reading the full article? Did you even get through half of it before coming to your conclusion?
The rally sad part of the image you used for the story is how his vest is deliberately devoid of any of the attachments that usually accompany such vests.
The velcro shoulld have: flash bags, a body camera; clips and caribiners, etc.
These cases are classic fascist propaganda-“hey look at this loser-he is not “invested” with any actual capacity, power, or capability, which is why the good guys’ have wired him up.”
Se how that works in a ‘feminist society?” Good men all wear real tax dollar funded, state sanctioned explosive devices; bad men have nothing.
“Se how that works in a ‘feminist society?” Good men all wear real tax dollar funded, state sanctioned explosive devices; bad men have nothing.”
Wut
Since the CIA/NSA/FBI can’t find the REAL criminals, thet will settle for anything/anybody that will make them look like they are doing their job.
Watch:http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/63954/Taxi_To_The_Dark_Side_BBC_Full_Length_Documentary/
It certainky seems to be the FBI’s MO.
This guy probably has an intellectual disability and the FBI spent their time entrapping him instead of referring him to someone that could help him turn his life around. That’s America for you.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
So let me get this straight, instead of getting this kid the mental help and counseling he clearly needed, we spent countless man hours forcing him into a bomb plot so we could spent countless more hours prosecuting him for a crime he probably would have never committed? Amazing
Precisely. These young men that are routinely targeted are psychologically vulnerable to manipulation. What the FBI are doing is nothing short of abuse. These kids need mental help, not life sentences!
Elaine-
So you are saying that some individuals are “targeted” meaning that they are “targeted individuals?”
If only his girlfriend had a 3some these could have all been avoided..
This is a double-edged sword. He was somewhat lead, and later somewhat entrapped, but he placed himself in a position to be easily manipulated by real terrorist organizations. It’s not hard to imagine him being used to hurt innocent people. So while this is a tragedy for this young man, this sort of law enforcement work surely protects the public. He’d be a very good candidate for a long-term supervision rather than incarceration. Life in prison is stupid and wasteful.
I guess it might be “double-edged”, but the problem is the FBI choosing legal remedies over referrals to health services.
That is: If instead of Muslims the orders were to entrap schizophrenics into bomb plots, that would also have led to a lot of convictions after they were properly led by their mentally damaged nose. I don’t blame schizos for “being in a position” to be influenced so do harm, if they wouldn’t on their own. And I’ve met a lot of them; and some are killers. But most won’t cause harm unless triggered.
That is: Instead of the FBI doing this huge program, maybe instead NIH should, so as to help some people in danger of turning violent due to wild thoughts (which they likely would never do on their own).
Law enforcement in this case doesn’t work to protect the public, it works to get convictions.
Finally: If the FBI’s goal was protecting the public, then they’d have 100,000 or more informants in every bar in the US to prevent and arrest anyone drunk who got in their car. Or even taking months to suggest a particular person should drink then drive. Drunk drivers kill over 10,000 Americans a year. Islamic terrorists kill less then a dozen a year on average. The priority OBVIOUSLY isn’t protecting the public from criminal behavior.
This focus is either cravenly political or naively paranoid.
By the same token, anyone below an IQ of 80 could be easily manipulated/groomed into posing a danger to themselves or others. That would be the next generation of kids who have permanent brain damage from drinking lead tainted drinking water in Michigan.
I find it interesting that left wing web sites support kids like this who are actively trying to kill us as victims of abuse by federal law enforcement but who alternatively absolutely support the feds when they over reach against homesteaders and farmers.
Never seen left-wing sites support “feds” when they over reach against homesteaders and farmers. Have literally no idea what you’re talking about
Does waving your ignorance around usually work out for you?
Cliven Bundy is the highest profile instance Bob is referring to – Bundy is an asshole – but lower profiles cases haven’t had such distasteful actors.
Bob isn’t wrong – Anyone paying attention wouldn’t ever celebrate the FBI – they’re creating terrorism to claim they’re stopping terrorism – they’re running child porn sites to stop child porn sites – I’m sure they’re creating meth to stop meth – etc etc.
They’re pretty much not good guys. So it is funny to see people on the left and right celebrate certain actions – despite the overwhelming evidence these aren’t people you want in power.
Birds cannot fly without a left wing. Your Hearst IS on your left side ;-)
Did you read the whole article, actively read it? I’m curious if your opinion about this kid would be any different if it was shared that he’s been diagnosed developmentally disabled. I don’t read left wing websites and admittedly don’t know much, if anything, about governmental overreach in the farming areas. Though I do think there’s a love/hate relationship with government entities in that we all love some things they do while disliking others. But I am genuinely curious about your furthering opinion.
FBI is good at setting people up for their benefit. Oklahoma City Murrah Building? That building was blown from the inside, outward. FBI knew that information. Yet, two persons were to blame, for three outside bombs and the blasts from the inside! FBI has done too many criminal activities to be trusted.
..and then there’s a couple side stories, one story about the student journalist at SMU, Michelle Rauch who interviewed Timothy McVeigh for 20 minutes during the Standoff at Waco. He was selling bumper stickers …” Fear the Government that Fears Your Gun, …Politicians Love Gun Control.”..her court testimony is on the internet..
Now the other story (one of the lesser of many far fetched versions), about Chandra Levy; shortly before her disappearance, she was working for the Bureau of Prisions during the time Timothy McVeigh was awaiting execution. She was the liaison between the media and the Bureau, arranging press conferences and possible seats at the execution. She also compiled press briefings and summaries for the Bureau staff.
No telling what type of security clearance Chandra had, but She had access to and was searching bureau records, presumably in conjunction with information found on the Internet.
Whether she had access to DOJ files, or mistakenly saw something, overheard something, or read something about McVeigh’s history, it is uncertain; but one thing is for sure, what ever it was, as she did a web search on McVeigh’s name..she most likely came across some very interesting unexplained coincidences..or Not!
I wonder how many people they’ve convicted are similar to him.
I think it’s good that guy is getting his food and accommodation in jail. As such he was having a hard time outside, and was a sitting duck for all the generally crooked jihadi “brothers” who would have eventually used him as a suicide bomber. At least he is safe now.
Sure, and in prison he’ll meet lots of interesting Cornell West types of characters and Noam Chomskys nobody has ever heard of..so much wisdom locked up..like the old ad , a mind is a terrible thing to waste
This sh!t is straight out of the Mossad playbook.
And certainly, the Anti Defamation League sending all those American police chiefs and SWAT teams and FBI agents to special training in Tel Aviv whorehouses certainly can’t be helping.
Mr. Omidyar?- Pierre-PIERRE?!! Are you listening?
Where were you when your nefarious Pal’s in the ADL were spying on America as if they were the LEIU? (now there’s a story, Brutus. Get on that)
[sounds of dagger in the back. Gurgling noises. Maybe a fang pi]
Et Tu, LEIU???
In China they stomp on rats-in America they promote them, and give them medals. Gold plated ones of course, cuz….oh never mind….
America’s Secret Police: http://projectcensored.org/6-americas-secret-police-network/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html?mcubz=0
How were you privileged to get Mossad book?
OT. Walter Becker, steely dan…
taking a moment here in remembrance
wonderful tribute here, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/postscript-walter-becker-of-steely-dan
with the hope that America will someday be capable of having the freedom that produces people bands and music like that contrary to my serious doubts.
O/T – The commenting system at TI is broken. It’s never been that good (that’s not what I mean) but currently it doesn’t work as intended.
No longer is information shared on these blogs, just becoming a trollers paradise. It only takes a jackass to kick down the barn.
The guy has a pic of the Virgin Mary above his bed.. wow.
That is definitely a Mommy designed bedroom and he might not want her to know he’s a jihadist. However, the bit about going drinking when he’s supposed to be planning Islamic terrorism makes a person wonder if he took the whole “taqiya” thing extra seriously. :) One of the many weird aspects of the jihadist idea though is that they say you are forgiven for all sins, including more or less not being a Muslim…
So you wanna be the pot or the kettle this time?..
The recipe for seduction in the US is quite simple.
Impoverish people.
Deny them dignity and purpose.
Do depraved things to other populations to stir resentment.
Engage in propaganda and lies to cultivate a corral.
Offer them a rewarding opportunity of fulfillment.
Close the gates.
oops – that’s also how the US turns american youth into military soldiers.
And they still cant find the murderer of Seth Rich – how lame.
So the FBI goes after this clueless kid at great effort and expense–pays $90K to informant plus personnel time to try and manufacture an ISIS terrorist–while USA’s CIA under Obama, and Clinton as SoS, armed and funded thousands of real ISIS terrorists in Syria.
CIA went to great effort and expense to run arms from Benghazi to ISIS jihadists in Syria.
I don’t get it.
Well, could it be that the one (FBI program) provides a justification for a repressive domestic surveillance / police state; while the other (CIA program) provides a justification for regime change and foreign military intervention? This implies a degree of coordinated planning, however, that is difficult to believe – these jackasses only create chaos, as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria demonstrate.
Thus, more likely, it seems that the imperial project, rather like the old Soviet Union, has multiple internal bureaucracies that often are in conflict with one another – as when the CIA-backed jihadists out of southern and northern Syria (trained in Jordan and Turkey, respectively) were fighting with the Pentagon-backed Kurds in eastern Syria? (The FBI being an entirely separate bureacratic power center). If you read histories of the internal conflicts and power struggles in the massive Soviet Union bureaucracy, the similarities are remarkable. . . For example, who is being referred to in this quote?
Internal decay was accompanied by an increasing proportion of resources devoted to the military–industrial complex, with little benefit for the rest of the economy.
A true Jihadi is one who carries out Jihad.
The word, Jihad, means striving or exerting.
The true Jihad is against one’s own lower self — striving to groom one’s self so that it reflects the higher qualities of generosity, love, peace, compassion, forgiveness, not doing unto others what one doesn’t want done unto one, humility, lack of desire for power and control, etc.
I love to rag on the FBI, I really do. But this ain’t CISPES! I mean, you tell me this guy had body armor, an AR-15 (a fancy toy from the mass media that even the gun nuts I know don’t spend their money on), he says he’s trying to build a bomb, he’s running ISIS propaganda on Facebook … what the hell were they *supposed* to do?
Now I’m not saying I wouldn’t sign on for some kind of libertarian crusade here. We all ought by any sane legal interpretation to have the right to build and carry around bombs and other homemade firearms – Second Amendment! But if I were going to start on that, I’d start on that poor crazy nerd who got caught trying to blow up a statue ( http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/HPD-HFD-FBI-on-scene-overnight-at-Rice-11946918.php ). I like nerds, and they’re not exceptionally dangerous. Hit him with a vandalism charge, leave him to go design a better rocket engine the way people like him usually did in his grandfather’s generation.
But people who get guns and talk terror and run around doing whatever people tell them to *ARE* dangerous. I see no reason why this guy should get some kind of special free pass for being both stupid and reckless, if he does something that everyone else would get sent to jail over. Either legalize the underlying conduct (see above) or don’t ask for special favors.
Underlying fundamental issue: there’s no real difference between evil, stupidity, mental illness. It’s all just error. We have prisons that are cruel and unnecessarily destructive, that don’t try to rehabilitate, because we don’t even dare to rehabilitate the *poor*, or look after their well being. If the poor were guaranteed a basic income then prisons would be like being poor with extra restrictions, and fear wouldn’t be needed to make them seem worse than being poor and “free”. The disease of making capitalism a religion has left this world too eager to hurt everything at the bottom. Markets have a place, but that place should be inferior to the life, health, and education of all the broken people, however they are broken.
Sure. Not everyone who is dangerous belongs in prison, however. There are other recourses. I’m pretty sure what the FBI is doing is not the right way to go about it.
I’m definitely for alternatives to prison all around. For example, I think that despite claims to the contrary, there has been almost no effort to cure pedophiles (seriously, look up publications about pedophiles on PubMed – practically nothing, and not one paper where they actually used legal Nevada hookers to do even the most obvious sort of experiments if they were serious about it). Even if you can’t cure pedophilia, you could do internal exile and put child molesters someplace far from children but otherwise free to live their lives. And that’s a relatively hard case – war on drugs, women screwing German shepherds, golfers whacking ducks with clubs, teenagers who blow up mailboxes with fireworks, there’s a whole lot of stuff there was never any conceivable reason to involve prisons with from the beginning. But if there’s a time for prison, it might be when the jihadist tries to blow people up!
That said, I don’t like that the FBI arrested him the minute he got the bomb. As I said above, I don’t even agree that explosives should be illegal, and even if I did, how do we know he wouldn’t have done the thing he claims he would have done? But — that’s the law they had on the books they were going by, so I can’t truly blame the *FBI* per se for that, especially not when their intent was to put a jihadist behind bars.
i agree with you mostly.
But i will take issue with no differences between evil, stupidity and mental illness.
These three conditions may look the same because they can produce similar results, by class, negative results, but evil has will, mental illness lacks will, and stupid is is befuddled between them. The US – aka bunch of stupids in charge – address only the action of the person as if it were the same for all three and thus easily skirt the responsibility of dealing with the type.
And one descriptive attribute –
What we have here AIN’T CAPITALISM.
Indeed! Markets have a place, but that place should be inferior to the life, health, and education of all the broken people, however they are broken. The criminals running the gov have been named – there are others out there – even as to naming the roles they played in WMD, the wallstreet robs mainstreet caper, 911, and Seth Rich. THE SOLUTION to making the changes you allude to require US to identify them by name and role as much as possible, name the charges, and call for their arrests and trial. Since this cannot be done by asking the very thieves, murderers, accomplices and supporters themselves, it must be done virtually on the net.
Which is why all those KKK, neo-Nazi guys should be in prison, too. They’re all actually running around armed to the teeth and shouting anti-American (Jews will not replace us!) slogans, planning hits online, but does the FBI take any of them down? Why don’t we hear about it? Instead they set up this poor dumb kid because you just got to catch those Muslims!
The FBI has caught a fair number of them in conspiracies also. Sometimes their charges there are even lamer – like talking Randy Weaver (later starring in the Ruby Ridge standoff) into sawing off two shotguns half an inch shorter than the legal limit. There is even less intent proved in making what you think is a legally permissible firearm and falling into a big gaping hole (not) in the Second Amendment than there is in taking what you think is an improvised terrorist bomb out into public with (perhaps) the intent eventually to go blow it up somewhere it won’t hurt anyone. After all, ISIS isn’t above duping a future “martyr” into carrying a bomb then setting it off remotely when they least expect it.
The main exculpatory thing I can imagine coming out in this case is if someone gets ahold of their archives and finds out *why* they didn’t decide to have this guy stage an attack. In other words, if they had him under surveillance telling someone that he didn’t think he could go through with it, and then they decided to arrest him just carrying the bomb because they knew he wouldn’t, I suspect that might cause trouble with the case.
But on the other hand, I have no idea if bozo really blew off an ISIS terror meeting in order to go out drinking. What if he managed to evade surveillance, meet with some *real* terrorists, who promptly told him not to trust those other FBI terrorists he hangs out with, and tell everyone he was out drinking? I mean, if I postulate hypotheticals I can do it all day in any direction here.
Let him die and let others what do this crime do the same too
Ouch, your article has a caption that says “Click this image to experience Trial and Terror data visualization mini site.” When someone directs me to click so that I can “experience” a site, no way am I going to do it. And I don’t know why someone on the Intercept’s staff would see their role as getting readers to “experience” a site. I read news sources to check out facts and arguments and to analyze them using my own mind, not to be put into some kind of “experience” that someone has set up for me. You’ve adopted the language of the faceless marketers who manipulate people by proffering an emotionally engaging “experience”. If you stopped using their language, you’d respect the agency of the Intercept’s paid members and readers better.
Have you experienced Eric Prince’s Blackwater site ?
Hellava businessman !!!
They use the word ‘experience’ because the page is somewhat interactive, and words like ‘view’, or ‘read’ don’t apply. If you’d clicked you might have realised, but instead you chose to rant about something you had no experience of.
I’ve certainly viewed interactive pages before, so you’re wrong about what “view” means. Words’ meanings aren’t totally rigid. Still, asking people to “experience” something tends to put relatively more emphasis on passive intake, and invites less critical thinking, than other words like “view”, “check out”, etc. I trust a news source less when they tell me that they see themselves as designing an “experience” for me using highly emotional words like “terror”. Fortunately most of the Intercept isn’t like that.
Our cowardly, fascist, and/or dishonest judges and justices have eviscerated the protections that we should have against entrapment. It should be entrapment for any law enforcement to first raise the idea of committing violent acts, but that’s not how the courts have defined it. So, we get crap like this. Actually, this guy isn’t a very good example of entrapment, because he said that he wanted to make bombs. There are much worse cases where law enforcement raised the idea of violent acts first and got the entrapped people to go along, then prosecuted them.
This shit happens all the time in the drug war. Cops shouldn’t be allowed to sell drugs to entrap people, but they are. And cops also harass or pressure small time drug dealers to get them much larger amounts than what the dealers normally sell (for example, people who normally just sell to friends and friends of friends are pressured to get wholesale amounts for narcs) so they can get much bigger convictions.
Careful what you say or do, the U.S. is very far from being a free country.
These pricks are using every technology available on civilians in an effort to groom terrorists. COINTELPRO, GangStalking and MKultra, V2K.
Agencies are using military grade RF weapons on innocent civilians.
DEW’s maim, torture and slow kill covertly.
Deep State agencies with no oversight should be dissolved.
Yes, thank you, dissolved immediately
I agree with dissolving agencies with no oversight. In fact, the oversight must be real, not just rubber-stamp BS. “Black” budgets for these jerks should also be eliminated. These are OUR tax dollars, and at the very least our elected representatives should have a right to see how the money is being spent.
I’d like to understand how informants are paid. Do they have monetary incentives to get an arrest to happen? Or are they paid for their time the same, even if it doesn’t lead to an arrest?
This guy doenst belong in jail. he belongs in a clinic.
These dry runs are important for justifying budgets and maintaining a crop of ready-to-go false flags.
If a false flag is ordered up for next month, for example, but it takes six months to nurture a patsy then it is clear why we need the FBI to populate a continuous conveyor belt of “terrorists”, even those of dubious quality.
How many more similar cases are being nurtured out there at this very moment?
I can’t help but wonder if the FBI (or CIA) has actually made one of these fake videos.
Be proud FBI. Assholes.
The FBI does important work, as quality control for ISIS, of weeding out new recruits who are too stupid to recognize an obvious trap. The FBI doesn’t get enough credit for this important service, but hopefully articles like this one will begin to redress the balance.
Everything about the war on terror has been fake since day 1. 9/11 was an inside job. It was executed to provide massive military funding and power. It ushered in the surveillance state, created DHS, put local police and first responders under the power of the federal government, etc. The increase in money and power could not have happened without 9/11 (as the study conducted by Jeb Bush& friends said).
3000 architects and engineers have put their lives and reputations on the line saying there’s a 0% chance that planes brought down those buildings (Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth). We know jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel, yet molten steel was found all over. Nanothermite was found all over the wreckage. The evidence is staggering.
These smaller problems are just the result of the bigger one. That’s where journalists should focus their efforts.
“3000 architects and engineers have put their lives and reputations on the line saying there’s a 0% chance that planes brought down those buildings (Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth). We know jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel, yet molten steel was found all over. Nanothermite was found all over the wreckage. The evidence is staggering.”
How have these people put there lives on the line? Please show a thread of evidence that any of these people lives have been in danger. On the other hand there are stories about truthers harassing the crap out of regular citizens who were first hand witnesses for telling what they saw when it didn’t conform to what the truthers claim.
The evidence is far from staggering. 3000 architects and engineers believe it was an inside job 3,000,000 do not. The police and first responders are not under the control of the federal government. The proposed military budget went up this year while everything else was cut with out any terrorist attacks being committed.
Want to know who got Rich from 9/11? Alex Jones.
Get a clue dude. Learn about the facts. Like the fact that NIST avoided explaining the collapse of WTC 1 and 2, ending analysis at collapse initiation. Do you know why? Because they defied fundamental laws of physics. You can not find one example of an expierment where a smaller section destroys a much larger undamaged section of same building and doing so WHILE CONSTANTLY ACCELERATING. If you can not get that through your head, you are an idiot. Furthermore, WTC 7, which fell at free fall for over 100 stories was address by NIST. Unfortunately, when they released their conclusions they omitted key structural components that would have otherwise prevented exactly what they claim to have happened. A couple years later through an FOIA, the original architectural drawlings were obtained, that is how we know they omitted them. There is a peer-reviewed jounrnal finding nano-thermite in dust. Yes, nano- thermite is a smaller, dirtier, and quiter bomb says the military. Coming out this month, U of Alaska findings that WTC 7 was not brought down by fire. And I could go on and on, But let me guess, you know none of the shit I discussed? Because you just assume there is no evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. Guess what, you are wrong as shit.
As far as your 3,000,000, where are they? Are they defending the physics behind 9/11? Nope. Find me a group of architects and engineers willing to defend against the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth.
I am not a physicist. If you can cite a peer reviewed analysis that proves the buildings coming down due to the crash defy the laws of physics cite it. As for the 3,000,000 they work in their field. They dont make their living promoting ct like Gage does, who has no credentials in physics. I have read pieces by actual Phd physicists disputing some of the science claimed by the truthers. What are your credentials?
Yer Uncle Larry must be so proud of you for sticking up for him ..After all that he’s been through..spending $14,000,000 of his hard earned money to lease the WTC, only to see it totally destroyed 274 days later..oh my goodness..it’s a good thing the lease agreement gave him the rights to rebuild on the property if the WTC was destroyed..hunh?!..
I’m sure you’re just as upset as he is at those mean, greedy insurance companies, hunh? After all, they only wanted to pay him a maximum of $4,550,000,000 for his loss..
Even though 2 airliners hit two different buildings at two different times..making them two separate occurrences , your poor Uncle Larry asked for $3,550,000,000 for each occurance for a total of $7,100,000,000..
Uh, he lost his law suit against the airlines whose airliners hit his building also..He wanted them to pay him $3,500,000,000 each..
Ahh, but it all worked out in the end..didn’t it though?..the United States Congress approved $8 billion in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds to fund development in the private sector at lower-than-market interest rates.
But, uh..$3.4 billion remained unallocated in March 2006 designated for Lower Manhattan, with about half of the funds under the control of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the other half under the control of former Governor George Pataki.
So yeah, Alex Jones made out like a bandit alright..good analysis
So according to you there was a complecated plot put in place by the highest levels of the govt and IC and these guys after all this planning left it up to Larry Silverstein to decide the fate of #7. Not only that but the insurance companies just said fuck it we will take the hit. Not only that , but all of this was done so we could go to war on Iraq and they forgot to pin it on Iraqis and instead pinned it on Saudis who Bush was tight with. Too funny.
Not funny at all..nor did I say anyone left anything up to Mr. Silverstein ..
Nor did I imply the insurance companies decided to take a hit..
No..not all of this was done, so the USA could invade Iraq.
No..Mr. Silverstein was just one of many characters ..
It’s not funny at all..Ever since the AUMF was passed on 9/14/2001 ,
The AUMF has been cited by a wide variety of US officials as justification for continuing US military actions all over the world. Often the phrases “Al-Qaeda and associated forces” or “affiliated forces” have been used by these officials. However, that phrase does not appear in the AUMF.
The AUMF has also been cited by the Department of Justice as authority for engaging in electronic surveillance in ACLU v. NSA without obtaining a warrant of the special court as required by the Constitution.
Besides the AUMF, one month later, The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001.
With its ten-letter abbreviation (USA PATRIOT) expanded, the full title is “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001″.
Do you remember what was happened 4 days after the AUMF was signed? The Anthrax Attack took place ..The Anthrax Scare was happening during and after the PATRIOT ACT debates and signing.
5 more people died and 17 were injured.
Do you know what the Patriot Act does?
Remember COINTELPRO in the 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s ?
The Patriot Act legalized everything the FBI did during COINTELPRO .
The Patriot Act is responsible for the current Terror Factory the FBI is running..
May I suggest, instead of mentioning Alex Jones, you read US History beginning with the 1960’s..
So in other words you have nothing that shows this was an inside job but your own speculation. Please state the details of the plot and give evidense for it. AUMF was the result of a terrorist attack not Larry Silverstein.
Yes..What I did was read the narrative, read and watch the 9/11 report ..watched the towers fall, then watched a controlled demolition building fall, then read some more,read my history, talked about all the different aspects of what happened and how it happened..and the evidence you claim to have is not enough proof for me to agree with you..nothing against you personally..
It’s just a tragic, complicated event with many little tragedies interspersed
This is like people who believe in God getting upset with those who don’t believe , demanding proof of their evidence for no God.. ..the burden of proof lies with the believer..like innocent until proven guilty..not guilty until proven innocent
You are the one claiming there was guilt by the govt, you are the one who believes in something other than the official story, the burden of proof is on you. How can i disprove your story of what happened if you arent even going to say what that story is?
Ok..please, like I said, nothing against you personally..never mind..it doesn’t matter..
The Patriot Act was 342 pages long.
It was passed 45 days after 9/11 and 42 days after AUMF.
The Patriot Act changed 15 existing laws.
Although it’s possible for 342 pages to be published in less than 45 days with team effort , its highly implausible
More likely, it took months/years to write and had been sitting in someone’s desk drawer for years..
Likewise, it’s possible that a team of congressional associates could’ve read different sections of the 342 page bill over a months time and briefed their congressmen, but it’s highly implausible..
I really don’t think the 3000 architects and engineers really had an opinion on WHO was responsible. Getting to the truth didn’t necessarily mean it was an “inside job”.
Tell that to the poster Bryan who claimed it was a plot by the feds to take over the police.
I think that’s his opinion. The architects and engineers back his opinion by saying the planes didn’t bring them down. That doesn’t mean the architects and the engineers necessarily think it was an inside job like poster Bryan does. Just sayin.