PHOTO: New evidence on Saudi national, Glenn reads cover of event file on radio
This story is being updated. Glenn said on radio that the suspect’s prior event referenced in the cover letter was also tagged 212 3 B, but corrected when he returned from break that they are still investigating the prior event #1648067 .
Glenn spent the night tweeting that he had big news on the Saudi national story, and he delivered it this morning when he read from a copy of the event file on Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi and delivered new information on this story.
“Now, you can tear me apart all you want. Bring it on. I’ve had my fill of it. I can take it. Bring it on. But it doesn’t make the facts go away. Any reporter, any journalist that might be listening, do not take my word for it. Take the facts that I just gave and ask the Department of Homeland Security security now: ‘Excuse me, explain away this.’ And when they come to you with more lies, you come back here. Because we have more,” Glenn said.
Here is the new information that Glenn revealed on radio today:
1) The event file created on Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi indicated on page two that he is armed and dangerous.
2) He was admitted into this country under a special advisory option which is usually reserved for visiting politicians, VIPs, or journalists.
3) One of the first excuses given by law enforcement when confronted about his pending deportation was expired VISA. According to the event file his visa is good until 11-Nov-2016.
4) Event file indicates he entered the United States on 08/28/12 in Boston, MA but says subject is a student at the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. He never showed up.
5) When an event file is created in the system the author(s) are notified via email when it is accessed and given the email address of the person accessing. As a result we know the following: After the file was created it first amended to remove the terrorism and deportation reference and then someone went back in and tried to destroy both the original and amended versions. They didn’t know there were copies.
6) The original event file was reviewed and approved by two high level agents – Chief Watch Commander Maimbourg and Watch Commander Mayfield.
2) He was admitted into this country under a special advisory option which is usually reserved for visiting politicians, VIPs, or journalists.
3) One of the first excuses given by law enforcement when confronted about his pending deportation was expired VISA. According to the event file his visa is good until 11-Nov-2016.
4) Event file indicates he entered the United States on 08/28/12 in Boston, MA but says subject is a student at the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. He never showed up.
5) When an event file is created in the system the author(s) are notified via email when it is accessed and given the email address of the person accessing. As a result we know the following: After the file was created it first amended to remove the terrorism and deportation reference and then someone went back in and tried to destroy both the original and amended versions. They didn’t know there were copies.
6) The original event file was reviewed and approved by two high level agents – Chief Watch Commander Maimbourg and Watch Commander Mayfield.
Here is the cover page of the event file:
SUBJECT,
ALHARBI, ABDULRAHMAN ALI E
DOB 03/12/1993
COC SAUDI ARABIA
ALHARBI, ABDULRAHMAN ALI E
DOB 03/12/1993
COC SAUDI ARABIA
SUBJECT IS AN EXACT MATCH TO NO FLY TPN# 1037506192. DEROGATORY INFORMATION REVIEWED BY W/C MAYFIELD AND CW/C MAIMBOURG WAS FOUND TO BE SUFFICIENT TO REQUEST VISA REVOCATION. NTC-P IS REQUESTING REVOCATION OF FOIL# E3139541. SUBJECT IS INADMISSIBLE TO THE U.S. UNDER INA 212(A)(3)(B)(I)(II). SAO WAS NOT COMPLETED PRIOR TO VISA ISSUANCE. SUBJECT IS CURRENTLY IN THE UNITED STATES, ADMITTED F1 STUDENT, AT BOSTON POE ON 08/28/2012. SUBJECT IS A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FINDLAY, 1000 NORTH MAIN STREET FINDLAY, OHIO 45840-3695. SUBJECT HAS ONE (1) PRIOR EVENT #1648067, FINS PROMOTED, NT RECORD IN PLACE, NO SCHEDULED FOUND AT THIS TIME
“By the way, will somebody ask, where is this extraordinarily dangerous man? Where is he? Ask that question. You’re not going to like the answer. For you, the American citizen, I want you to know you should have great hope. You should have great pride. There are people that are risking everything to bring this information. They are stunned and angry at how many journalists will not report this story,” Glenn said.
Glenn reacts to Janet Napolitano’s shocking admission
The disinformation that has accompanied the investigation and reporting of the Boston Marathon bombing has been nothing short of spectacular. Perhaps there is no greater example than Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comments in the wake of the event.
When TheBlaze first began to dig deeper into the story of the Saudi national, who was once considered a ‘person of interest’ in the bombing investigation before being downgraded to a ‘witness,’ Napolitano refused to even entertain questions about Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi. She called Rep. Jake Duncan’s inquiry into the matter “so full of misstatements and misapprehension that it’s just not worthy of an answer.”
Well, apparently Napolitano had a change of heart because during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform yesterday, she responded to questions about the Saudi national posed by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
GRASSLEY: With regard to the Saudi student, was he on a watchlist, and if so, how did he obtain a student visa?
NAPOLITANO: He was not on a watchlist. What happened is — this student was, really when you back it out, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was never a subject. He was never even really a person of interest. Because he was being interviewed, he was at that point put on a watchlist, and then when it was quickly determined he had nothing to do with the bombing, the watch listing status was removed.
The inconsistencies in this comment are truly unbelievable. First, Napolitano denies Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi was on a watchlist, only to then confirm he was on a watchlist – but only because he was a witness and they didn’t want him to somehow get away. To further complicate matters, she then admits he was considered at least somewhat suspicious because it wasn’t until they “determined he had nothing to do with the bombing” that his name was removed from the watchlist.
Do you follow that?
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Glenn said exasperatedly on radio this morning. “Now, she’s trying to get you to believe that this Saudi Arabian national wasn’t a person of interest, they put him on a watch list because he was being interviewed. And once they discovered he wasn’t involved, this person who of course they knew she just said wasn’t a person even of interest, then they removed him.”
There is tremendous depth to this story, and Napolitano’s comments do not even begin to scratch the surface. Sadly, no one in the media seems to have the nerve to touch it. “And there’s no one in the media – and believe me, you guys are – you people in the media are really truly criminal. You’re criminal, and you should be asking why is it my network will not report this news? You have really good, really good reporters. Why is my network not reporting this news? There has to be an answer, and I’ll bet you guys can come up with it about [snapping fingers] that fast. Why is my network not covering this news?”
Glenn has compared this story to the Monica Lewinsky scandal that was initially brushed off as a right-wing conspiracy, until Matt Drudge was able to expose the truth. It is unclear what affect this information will have on the Obama administration, but Glenn made a very bold prediction.
“The administration is coming undone here with this,” he explained. “I guess it takes – what does it take? I’m hoping that it doesn’t take more. But apparently what it takes is a few Americans getting their arms and legs blown off in a U.S. city. That’s what it will take for Americans to wake up out of their slumber. Maybe, maybe. If it doesn’t, we are going to pay a much higher price to wake up.”
“But as horrible as this sounds, maybe this is the only pain we have to have. It sounds like I’m minimizing that pain. I know how horrible that was,” Glenn concluded. “But the pain from here gets much, much worse if you don’t wake up.”
How is Fox News’ Bret Baier covering the Saudi national story?
TheBlaze has spent the last week exposing the truth behind the Saudi national who was initially questioned and considered a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing before being downgraded to merely a witness.
People like Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have been quick to discredit TheBlaze’s reporting, while several senators have put their weight behind the story. The media, for its part, has been relatively silent. But last night, Fox News’ Bret Baier addressed the ever-growing controversy in his “The Daily Bret” video blog post.
“I want to go to a deal from Bret Baier,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “Bret Baier yesterday – and this is being used to discredit us… he is saying that the Department of Homeland Security told him that this is all wrong. Well, that’s pretty important information I would think that would need to be on the show. But he put it on his blog, and I want you to listen to this story, and listen with more than your ears and listen to – something just doesn’t seem like Bret’s married into this.”
BAIER: Janet Napolitano, the Security of Homeland Security just said today that he [Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi] really was never a person of interest. But out of an abundance of caution and out of diligence according to these U.S. officials, federal authorities at that time, because they wanted to question him, added him to the no fly list. Now, this is key: When anyone inside the U.S. with a U.S. visa is added to the no fly list, the process, the process is started. And I stress process here, to revoke visa. And that’s automatically begun according to U.S. officials. The 212 is a national security indication and anyone looking at this would say this is a bad guy. This means they had a lot of stuff on this guy. The U.S. officials we’re talking to say this document was simply triggered by them putting him on the no fly list when they went to talk to him.
“Stop,” Glenn said. “Bret’s smarter than this. If he wasn’t, he should put this on his real show. But Bret is smarter than this… you’ll notice here that Bret is saying ‘our sources at Homeland Security.’ Well, I’m sure that if I called the newsroom at, you know, or the press room at Homeland Security, they would tell me the same thing. I’m going to give Bret the benefit of the doubt because I don’t know – it’s not like we hang out with each other, but I have respect for Bret and I have respect for his team and I know, I just, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s on it. What pressure is being applied I have – one can only guess. But I appreciate the fact that he is putting this on his blog. Be careful who you trust and be careful who you throw under the bus. You’re not necessarily always getting the full story. And this is going to take an orchestra to be able to navigate through.”
Glenn may have been willing to give Bret the benefit of the doubt, but he had a message for all the journalists out there who are ignoring or discrediting this story.
“Now, for those journalists elsewhere, I’m not sure what your story is. I don’t think you have one. You might want to go back to work,” Glenn said.
And for those of you sitting at home wanting to make sure this story gets its due diligence, Glenn shared this:
“Call your congressmen now and tell them, look at the story at TheBlaze. If they think it’s a conspiracy theory, explain away what’s being posted now at TheBlaze,” he said. “And by the way, there’s much, much more where that comes from. Tell your congressmen you’d like to know exactly where this gentleman is. I warn you, you’re not going to like the answer. But you’d like to know exactly where this man who is armed and dangerous and how he got into this country without being vetted at all with special access. If he has this special access, you’re telling me when they came to him that they had no idea who he was? That seems awfully strange. Seems like someone might be lying.”
Boston bomb suspect's name was on classified
government watch lists
A combination of handout pictures released through the FBI website on April 18, 2013 show Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev (L), suspects wanted for questioning in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing April 15.
Credit: Reuters/Handout/Files
WASHINGTON |
(Reuters) - The name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was listed on the U.S. government's highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists. But the list is so vast that this did not mean authorities automatically kept close tabs on him, sources close to the bombing investigation said on Tuesday.
Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a police shootout early Friday, while his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, was captured later that day. Prosecutors say the brothers, ethnic Chechens who had been living in the United States for more than a decade, planted two bombs that exploded near the finish line of the marathon on April 15, killing three people and wounding more than 200.
The sources said Tamerlan Tsarnaev's details were entered into TIDE, a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, because the FBI spoke to him in 2011 while investigating a Russian tip-off that he had become a follower of radical Islamists.
The FBI found nothing to suggest he was an active threat, but all the same placed his name on the "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" list. The FBI has not said what it did find about Tsarnaev.
But the database, which holds more than half a million names, is only a repository of information on people who U.S. authorities see as known, suspected or potential terrorists from around the world.
Because of its huge size, U.S. investigators do not routinely monitor everyone registered there, said U.S. officials familiar with the database.
As of 2008, TIDE contained more than 540,000 names, although they represented about 450,000 actual people, because some of the entries are aliases or different name spellings for the same person. Fewer than 5 percent of the TIDE entries were U.S. citizens or legal residents, according to a description of the database on the NCTC website.
TIDE AND OTHER DATABASES
The TIDE database is one of many federal security databases set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The database system has been criticized in the past for being too cumbersome, especially in light of an attempted attack on a plane in 2009. Intelligence and security agencies acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to the Detroit "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Officials said after the incident that he had been listed in the TIDE database.
Republican Senator Susan Collins said there were problems in sharing information ahead of the Boston bombings, too.
"This is troubling to me that this many years after the attacks on our country in 2001 that we still seem to have stovepipes that prevent information from being shared effectively," she said. Collins was speaking after the FBI gave a closed-door briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, but she did not elaborate.
However, in the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the issue appeared to be that because he was not deemed an active threat, his name was only briefly on a list that would have triggered monitoring.
Tsarnaev was not put on the "no-fly" list that would have banned him from boarding an airplane in the United States. Neither was he named on the Selectee List, which would have required him to be given extra security screening at airports.
Another list, the Terrorist Screening Database, is a declassified version of the highly classified TIDE with fewer details about terrorist suspects. One source said Tsarnaev was on this list, too.
After being put in the TIDE system, his name was entered in another database, this one maintained by the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection bureau which is used to screen people crossing U.S. land borders and entering at airports or by sea.
Tsarnaev was flagged on that database when he left the United States for Russia in January 2012 but no alarm was raised, presumably because the FBI had not identified him as a threat after the interview.
When he returned from Russia six months later, he had already been automatically downgraded in the border database because there was no new information that required him to continue to get extra attention. So he did not get secondary inspection on his re-entry at New York's JFK Airport. It was unclear exactly what the procedure was for such a downgrade.
Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, defended the FBI's performance in the Boston bombings at two closed hearings in Congress on Tuesday.
While government agencies declined to publicly discuss how the watch list system handled Tsarnaev, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano disclosed some details at a separate, open hearing on immigration on Capitol Hill.
"Yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the United States. By the time he returned, all investigations - the matter had been closed," Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Bob Grenier, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, said the effectiveness of watch list systems is dependent on what information was put in them, adding that unless authorities had a strong piece of information against somebody, they were not going to put restrictions on people in a free society.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said law enforcement should have kept a closer eye on Tsarnaev after the FBI spoke to him two years ago. The FBI should also have realized last week following the bombings that he was in databases, Graham told reporters.
"After the bomb went off, don't you think one of the first things the FBI would do is say, 'Have we interviewed anybody in the Boston area that may fit the profile of doing this?' How could his name not pop up, the older brother? And when you have the photo the whole world is looking at, how could we not match that photo with him already being in the system?" Graham said.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Alistair Bell, Frances Kerry and Eric Beech)
(Reuters) - The name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was listed on the U.S. government's highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists. But the list is so vast that this did not mean authorities automatically kept close tabs on him, sources close to the bombing investigation said on Tuesday.
Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a police shootout early Friday, while his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, was captured later that day. Prosecutors say the brothers, ethnic Chechens who had been living in the United States for more than a decade, planted two bombs that exploded near the finish line of the marathon on April 15, killing three people and wounding more than 200.
The sources said Tamerlan Tsarnaev's details were entered into TIDE, a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, because the FBI spoke to him in 2011 while investigating a Russian tip-off that he had become a follower of radical Islamists.
The FBI found nothing to suggest he was an active threat, but all the same placed his name on the "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" list. The FBI has not said what it did find about Tsarnaev.
But the database, which holds more than half a million names, is only a repository of information on people who U.S. authorities see as known, suspected or potential terrorists from around the world.
Because of its huge size, U.S. investigators do not routinely monitor everyone registered there, said U.S. officials familiar with the database.
As of 2008, TIDE contained more than 540,000 names, although they represented about 450,000 actual people, because some of the entries are aliases or different name spellings for the same person. Fewer than 5 percent of the TIDE entries were U.S. citizens or legal residents, according to a description of the database on the NCTC website.
TIDE AND OTHER DATABASES
The TIDE database is one of many federal security databases set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The database system has been criticized in the past for being too cumbersome, especially in light of an attempted attack on a plane in 2009. Intelligence and security agencies acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to the Detroit "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Officials said after the incident that he had been listed in the TIDE database.
Republican Senator Susan Collins said there were problems in sharing information ahead of the Boston bombings, too.
"This is troubling to me that this many years after the attacks on our country in 2001 that we still seem to have stovepipes that prevent information from being shared effectively," she said. Collins was speaking after the FBI gave a closed-door briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, but she did not elaborate.
However, in the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the issue appeared to be that because he was not deemed an active threat, his name was only briefly on a list that would have triggered monitoring.
Tsarnaev was not put on the "no-fly" list that would have banned him from boarding an airplane in the United States. Neither was he named on the Selectee List, which would have required him to be given extra security screening at airports.
Another list, the Terrorist Screening Database, is a declassified version of the highly classified TIDE with fewer details about terrorist suspects. One source said Tsarnaev was on this list, too.
After being put in the TIDE system, his name was entered in another database, this one maintained by the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection bureau which is used to screen people crossing U.S. land borders and entering at airports or by sea.
Tsarnaev was flagged on that database when he left the United States for Russia in January 2012 but no alarm was raised, presumably because the FBI had not identified him as a threat after the interview.
When he returned from Russia six months later, he had already been automatically downgraded in the border database because there was no new information that required him to continue to get extra attention. So he did not get secondary inspection on his re-entry at New York's JFK Airport. It was unclear exactly what the procedure was for such a downgrade.
Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, defended the FBI's performance in the Boston bombings at two closed hearings in Congress on Tuesday.
While government agencies declined to publicly discuss how the watch list system handled Tsarnaev, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano disclosed some details at a separate, open hearing on immigration on Capitol Hill.
"Yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the United States. By the time he returned, all investigations - the matter had been closed," Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Bob Grenier, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, said the effectiveness of watch list systems is dependent on what information was put in them, adding that unless authorities had a strong piece of information against somebody, they were not going to put restrictions on people in a free society.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said law enforcement should have kept a closer eye on Tsarnaev after the FBI spoke to him two years ago. The FBI should also have realized last week following the bombings that he was in databases, Graham told reporters.
"After the bomb went off, don't you think one of the first things the FBI would do is say, 'Have we interviewed anybody in the Boston area that may fit the profile of doing this?' How could his name not pop up, the older brother? And when you have the photo the whole world is looking at, how could we not match that photo with him already being in the system?" Graham said.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Alistair Bell, Frances Kerry and Eric Beech)
Here’s the radical mosque the Boston terrorists attended
We now know that two of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing regularly attended the Boston Islamic Society. The media, however, keeps running with the story that the pair were radicalized on the internet. So what about this mosque? For starters, one of it’s founders is a convicted terrorist serving prison time. But it gets worse – Glenn explained on radio today alongside guest Patrick Poole.
Transcript of interview is below:
GLENN: Last night I had some meetings I had to be in and then I had to fly to New York and to I had to leave Dallas early before I left for New York and I ‑‑ I’m really bummed because Stu did the show for me and executed a lot of the information that we had on the Islamic mosque that is up in Boston that these two guys went to. And they are trying to make this mosque seem like this is just the all‑American mosque. You know, this mosque is on the front lines of fighting for the Fourth of July and Martin Luther King. Nothing could be further from the truth and we have Patrick Poole who is with us. And Patrick has been at the for front of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terror and Islamic terror cells here in America for a very long time. I don’t think there’s a handful of people that have his credibility and Patrick is here to tell us a little bit about what this mosque is, the history of this mosque and who is involved. Patrick, they are saying that this was religion that did this to these guys and the mosque, they knew he was a bad dude because, you know, he stood up and said that we shouldn’t emulate Martin Luther King. Is this ‑‑ is this mosque friends of Martin Luther King?POOLE: Well, it’s doubtful because they have a long line going back to their very founding, their incorporation papers where Abdurahman Alamoudi, the Al‑Qaeda fundraiser currently in federal prison, was one of the founders of this mosque and was involved in it for years.GLENN: This is also their, one of their spiritual leaders, their trustees is the wheelchair guy over in Saudi Arabia?POOLE: In Qatar, yes, Yusuf al‑Qaradawi was basically the chief jurist for the Muslim Brotherhood and he’s probably the most popular Islamic cleric on the planet. He has a Friday afternoon TV program called Sharia In Life on Al‑Jazeera.GLENN: I’m sorry. On what network?POOLE: Al‑Jazeera.GLENN: Oh, Al‑Jazeera. Well, that’s a good ‑‑ we’ve heard from the president that’s just a good quality network that gives good people truth, if people would just watch it, you’ll get the truth from Al‑Jazeera. That’s what we’ve heard from Hillary and the president.POOLE: Well, and interestingly al‑Qaradawi who then was a trustee for the Islamic Society of Boston, Qaradawi holds the distinction for being the first Sunni Islamic cleric to issue a fatwah authorizing suicide bombings targeting Israel. This was back in 1994. You know, suicide bombing was typically a Shiite, you know, kind of Iranian/Hezbollah phenomenon and then Qaradawi authorized, was the first Sunni cleric to give suicide bombings the green light, and I mean that launched, you know, all kinds of terrorist movements. And this is the guy who, he’s banned from the United States. In fact, the Islamic Society of Boston had a fundraiser featuring Qaradawi but he had to do it by teleconference from Qatar, his office in Qatar which, by the way, his office in Qatar, you look out his window and you can see into CENTCOM’s compound there in Qatar, but that’s a whole other story. But, you know, these are some pretty noxious guys.
GLENN: So this is also, if I’m not mistaken, this is the mosque that the ‑‑ Americans will remember this mosque. Not that anybody in the media will really point this out, but they will remember this mosque as the mosque that had all of the kids come in from the local area and had these schoolkids come in and get a tour of the mosque and some would say a little indoctrination.POOLE: Well, even more than indoctrination, they had some of the kids line up for prayer, and one of the mothers who was with the group took video of this and handed it off to Charles Jacobs with Americans for Peace and Tolerance up you there who had been a very vocal critic of the mosque and was sued by the mosque for his criticism and it ended up being a big hubbabaloo but, yeah, it wasn’t just indoctrination. And last night Stu played the clip of the woman teaching in the mosque that, you know, women in Islam have been, you know, free, you know, since the time of Mohammed and only here in America, it’s only been for the past hundred years.GLENN: Right. They were trying ‑‑ yeah, what they were trying to do, this clip is amazing. This woman is claiming that, you know, under Mohammed women are free. Unfortunately they kind of leave out the all‑important parts that, no, not really. In Saudi Arabia can’t really even drive a car if you’re a woman.POOLE: Right. And one of the other clips that we played last night was the current imam, Abdullah Farooq talking about jihad. We can’t just be talking about jihad; we need to be doing jihad by the sword and the gun too.GLENN: No, I think we’ve learned from the administration that jihad is a holy practice that brings you closer to God.POOLE: Yeah. Umm… one of the things we didn’t get to, and my hat’s off to Stu. I mean, we covered a lot of ground last night. One of the things we didn’t get to is that the former chairman of the mosque, a guy by the name of Osama Kandil, he was a trustee for another group called the Taibah Aid International Association with Abdulrahman al Moody, the Al‑Qaeda fundraiser, which was a designated terrorist organization and was raising money for Al‑Qaeda. I mean, this is the chairman of the board.GLENN: But I don’t think you understand ‑‑POOLE: ‑‑ for the Islamic Society of BostonGLENN: I don’t think you understand, though, that they kicked these guys out because they said they are so mainstream that when they said, you know, we should really celebrate Fourth of July here in America, it made the Boston bomber angry and he left and so they kicked him out for four or five days, you know, because that was a ‑‑ you know, that was a really bad thing. I don’t think you ‑‑ I think you’re downplaying how American this mosque is and how much they love the whole star change he would banner and everything.POOLE: Yeah. Well, one of the other current imams, Suhaib Webb, two days before 9/11 was out in California raising money for a convicted cop‑killer with none other than Anwar Awlaki. So I don’t know if you can get any more all‑American than that.GLENN: Yeah, absolutely. I think you ‑‑ now you’re starting to see it.POOLE: Yeah.GLENN: We have a video on TheBlaze now from the American Muslim Center, a mosque in Everett, Massachusetts. The clip, which is posted on the mosque’s website advertises the house of worship many activities. However, there’s a woman in this named Kat and she’s speaking about how she recently converted to Islam and TheBlaze is wondering and has the pictures side by side. It looks like this could be Katherine Russell, the bomber’s ‑‑ the bomber’s wife. It’s an interesting. It’s an interesting promo that you might want to ‑‑ you might want to see.Is anyone, Patrick, looking at this, really seriously looking at this mosque? And why is this ‑‑ why does this mosque continue to get a pass from the United States government?POOLE: Well, because looking at any of its extremist ties has basically been outlawed by this administration. I mean, if you were to ‑‑ and as I talked about last night, all the information, which is freely available, you know, everything we’ve been talking about here for this segment is all open sourced. It’s been reported by The Boston Globe, New York Sun, a bunch of other outlets. All this information was inside the DHS system and back in late 2010, Homeland Security purged all of the information, again, all open source, all freely available, purged that information from the system and from my understanding from some congressional investigators who are looking at this purge, there were hundreds of files of mosques and Islamic leaders, negative information that was part of this purge that they’re having to look at.GLENN: Patrick, I thank you very much for all of your hard work. I thank you for all of the work that you’ve done on our documentary specials that we’ve done and all the things that you’ve done not only with us but with PJ Media. You have been brave, outspoken, unflinching and on the front lines this whole time, and there’s only a handful of people that are doing that and you’re one of them. And we’re very, very grateful. And Americans, if they don’t know who you are or what you’ve done, America, you should look into Patrick Poole because you are ‑‑ you’re a fearless guy, and I appreciate it. Thank you, Patrick.POOLE: Thanks.GLENN: Appreciate it.POOLE: Thank you.
Patrick Poole also joined Stu on The Glenn Beck Program last night to discuss:
This Saudi Abdul Rahman Alharbi was declared ARMED and DANGEROUS and yet Obama's wife visited a terrorist named and labeled by the FBI What does this mean? You tell me
ARE THESE PICTURES OF MICHELLE OBAMA VISITING THE SAUDI STUDENT PUT ON A WATCHLIST LAST WEEK?
Apr. 24, 2013 12:25pm Photos of a visit Michelle Obama is alleged to have had with Abdul Rahman Alharbi — the Saudi national previously considered to be “person of interest,” “armed and dangerous,” and worthy of inclusion on a watch list — may have appeared on a Facebook page associated with an English language school in Boston or students who share a common bond of going to English schools in the area.
Watch the full video, below (see this individual depicted at 5:25):
Photo Credit: Facebook
A close-up of the alleged photo.
The above photo montage, which was posted at FreeRepublic today, originally appears on the Facebook page for “EC Boston Saudi’s.” EC Boston most likely refers to the EC Boston English Language School. The Arabic caption on the photo reads: “اخونا عبدالرØمن الØربي مع ميشيل Ø£ُباما واصاØبة”
Filtered through Google Translate, this comes out to: “Brother Abdul Rahman Alharbi with Michelle [untranslatable] and Asahabh.” The photos were originally posted by Facebook user Yazeed Salem, who appears to be pictured with Alharbi in the top-left photo.
Salem (left) and Al-Harbi (right) (Photo Credit: Facebook)
The individual photographs give every appearance of being genuine. There is no obvious sign of Photoshopping (although it’s possible they have been). Moreover, the business card in the photosbelongs to an actual White House Staffer — namely, Robert Schmuck, Special Assistant to the President and Traveling Aide (although his title appears to have changed in the last year). The First Lady is also pictured in the outfit she wore to visit Boston area hospitals last week.
Michelle Obama visiting Boston-area hospitals (Photo Credit: CBS Boston)
First Lady Michelle Obama was laso reported to have visited with Alharbi on Thursday, after arriving in Boston with President Obama to visit victims of the bombings being treated in three separate hospitals, according to the well known Saudi Arabian news site Ozak.com.
When TheBlaze contacted the White House last week to comment on the First Lady’s alleged meeting with Alharbi after the first reports surfaced, they declined to comment, sending only the original press report issued on Thursday. The visits to the hospitals were closed to reporters.
“The First Lady visited with patients, their families and hospital staff at Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital,” the White House spokesperson emailed. When we asked about the visit again now that alleged photos have surfaced, we were again pointed to the general pool report noting Obama’s visit to the hospitals.
It should be noted that because the photos have only been discovered in montage form thus far, it is difficult to tell whether they all come from the First Lady’s alleged visit to Alharbi. The business card photo gives no indication of who it is being handed to, and the photo of the First Lady leaving a hospital room (bottom right) does not show any sign of who is in that hospital room.
And even if the pictures turn out to be genuine, it should be noted that it is unlikely that the First Lady was specifically visiting Alharbi. Rather, this visit almost certainly took place during the course of her and the president’s visits to victims of the bombing last Thursday that were well documented by the press, even though reporters were not allowed to tag along. On the surface, it would not be odd that Alharbi would have been one of many victims to receive a visit. Moreover, the visit appears to have taken place after Alharbi was already cleared as a suspect (Blaze sources indicate Alharbi was cleared on Wednesday).
Nevertheless, given that the visit took place before the apprehension of the Tsarnaev brothers, one might wonder about the First Lady’s willingness to be in the same room as a recently acquitted “person of interest,” especially one about whom her husband’s administration had been so concerned about to have put him on a watchlist.
Editor’s note — We’ll be discussing this story and all the day’s news during our live BlazeCast at 1pm ET…including your questions, comments & live chat:
IS THE WOMAN IN THIS MUSLIM CENTER’S PROMO VIDEO THE BOSTON BOMBER SUSPECT’S WIFE?
Apr. 24, 2013 10:57am
As the details of the Boston bombing continue to trickle in, many questions remain. Among them, authorities and the public, alike, are naturally wondering what Katherine Tsarnaev (maiden name: Russell) knew, if anything, about her husband Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his purportedly radicalized worldview.
Naturally, one of the major curiosities is how faith may have played a role in the terror attack — which is why a YouTube clip that was brought to our attention sparks some intrigue.
Katherine Russell (Photo Credit: MailOnline.com)
Earlier this week, an avid reader reached out to TheBlaze with a video from the American Muslim Center, an Islamic organization in Everett, Massachusetts. The clip, which is posted on the group’s website, advertises the center’s many activities. However, as the reader points out, a woman named “Kat” is shown in the video speaking about how she recently converted to Islam.
The reader wondered if this individual is, in fact, Tsarnaev’s wife. Obviously, that’s a loaded accusation, but certainly one worth exploring.
Woman named “Kat” who appears in Boston-area mosque video (Photo Credit: YouTube)
Now, there’s no way to tell definitively simply based on the video whether or not this is the same woman that journalists have been reporting on over the past week. But a closer look at Kat’s comments and comparative pictures is warranted.
“My name is Kat. I’m a new convert. I came to American Muslim Center in Everett to convert eight days ago,” the woman proclaims in the video. “And I’m very grateful to have the American Muslim Center so close to where I live. Since I’m new, I have so many questions and having it be so close is truly — is truly great for me.”
See this portion of the clip, below:
See this portion of the clip, below:
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