News roundup on San Bernardino
There are an extraordinary number of big news items today today connected with San Bernardino, so I’m going to do what I seldom do—list some of them.
(1) Work acquaintances of Syed Farook describe him. It’s chilling, not because he was so scary, but because there really seem to have been few or no signs of anything amiss.
(2) The FBI has now officially declared the San Bernardino case to be a terror investigation. It seems to me, however, that in some ways this is still being treated as an ordinary criminal case in terms of what’s happening to the residence of the perpetrators:
On whether law enforcement is troubled that media were allowed into the assailants’ home by a property manager: “We executed a search warrant on that apartment. And last night, we turned that over back to the residents [property manager]. Once the residents have the apartment and we’re not in it anymore, we don’t control it. We did leave a list of items seized that I know some people have, and they’re asking, ‘Why did we give that?’ We have to give that out by law. Any time we execute a lawful search warrant, we have to leave, for the residence, a list that lists all of the items seized during that search warrant.”
“Once we turned that location back over to the occupants of that residence, or once we boarded up [and left], anyone who goes in at that point, that’s got nothing to do with us.”
Here is a description of the very disturbing state of affairs. This was the largest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 in terms of loss of life, and the media is allowed to ransack the perpetrators home and contaminate potential evidence 2 days later? How can the FBI know they are finished there?
(3) Farook’s bride and fellow-terrorist Tashfeen Malik came to this country in July of 2014 on a so-called “fiance” visa. This is the process that was involved:
Federal officials maintain they have a very effective, rigorous screening process in place for people from countries with links to jihadist movement.
The entire review process can take anywhere from five to eight months, after which the files get handed over to the U.S. State Department for another thorough look at the couple’s personal histories.
Once the couple clears this hurdle, the fiance-in-question is called in for an in-person interview with U.S. embassy staff in their residing country. Questions like “How did you two meet?” are asked, though this process varies from country to country.
Finally, if they’ve made it through these steps, the visa is granted. Travel tickets are purchased. The couple gets married.
Malik and Farooq married the month after her arrival and she eventually became a lawful permanent resident.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s not unlike that which is used to vet the Syrian refugees who will be coming from refugee camps, although this takes a somewhat shorter amount of time. Clearly, the process failed us with Malik. ISIS being ISIS, there’s no question that this route could be used to get someone, man or woman, into the country.
(4) Farook’s brother-in-law Farhan and Farhan’s wife, Farook’s sister Saira, had this to say:
Farhan said he felt an obligation to address the victims on the night of the shooting.
“I wanted to go there and talk to the victims, people who were hurt… So I love this country, I love the people,” Farhan said. “And I felt responsible to go and tell this to the people.”
“Do you think your brother deserves to be forgiven?” Begnaud asked Saira.
“That’s a hard question,” she said. “I don’t even know if I would forgive him. Just because of what he did.”
Farhan said, right now, he could not forgive Farook.
“With what he did, no. What he did to his own family, to his daughter, to our family, to the innocent people there — no. I wouldn’t forgive him,” Farhan said.
(5) When asked if stronger background checks would have prevented the San Bernardino attack, Josh Earnest answers “of course not.” That was followed by this:
The exchange became tense as Karl followed up: “But the president made these comments specifically when asked about this shooting. So I’m wondering why he kind of immediate fell back to Congress needs to pass more gun legislation.”
“Because the president is determined to ensure that these kinds of incidents of mass shootings aren’t considered routine, and he’s determined to press Congress at every turn to take steps ”“” Earnest said before being interrupted.
“But you just acknowledged that his proposal wouldn’t have done anything to prevent this incident,” Karl said.
Earnest sternly said, ”Jon we are talking about future incidents.”
Sure. Future incidents that won’t be prevented, either.
Some people think the contamination of the crime scene was almost directed by Obama.
And leaving the passports and what not? odd.
Say, who was the Secretary of State when the U.S. Embassy issued Malik a visa? But I guess “at this point, what difference does it make?”
Still hear reports that Law Enforcement do not believe that they were part of some terror related group. I wonder if those middle eastern men who repeatedly showed up at the bomb factory, at all hours of the night, were there to play pinochle? Did they notice anything? Nothing to see here? No clue? Anybody interested in who they are?
The family has lawyered up, and the lawyers are saying the family “saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing”. Again, did they ever visit the arsenal disguised as a home? How did the murdering Cretins explain it? Toys for the infant?
I think mushrooms are treated with more respect than the American people.
Addendum: I fully understand why Law Enforcement will not, and should not, tell all they know; and what their plan is. That being the case, everyone, including Politicians, their operatives, and the media should just shut up with the inane comments.
ABC News has a photo of the wife.
In the text, it says she wore a full burqa.
Did none of Farook’s workplace acquaintances who said they saw no signs of anything amiss ever meet his wife? If they did, seems to me the full burqa would have been/should have been at least slightly disturbing.
Ann:
I don’t think anyone ever met the wife except the family. They said that they only saw her with a burqa, too.
She managed to shed her burqa for combat gear in the end, though.
LA Times: San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook had contact with people from at least two terrorist organizations overseas, including the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.
It’s weird that law enforcement would let the landlord open the house to the media. Most crime scene investigations (such as a bomb factory, planning center, etc.) are kept under wraps until the case is iron clad and nothing further could be learned from the scene. Was this a mistake by the FBI/Sheriff? Seems that way.
The family lawyers are probably being paid by CAIR. They seem to have an unusual interest in doing PR on it. And this is a PR move at this time. I.E. “Don’t blame we Muslims for this.” I would think CAIR could have hired better legal eagles than these two, but who knows.
Challenging Second Amendment rights at every chance is another big loser for the dems. Yesterday, our evening news here in The People’s Republic of Puget Sound had a feature interviewing people who were buying guns as a result of San Bernardino. That, in a very, very blue state. There is change in the air……..hopefully.
Crime scenes are often sealed for weeks. In a federal investigation involving the murder of 14 and 21 wounded, it is suspicious that the crime scene was left unsealed mere days after the attack. Thus, conspiracy theories are born.
Background checks need to be thorough, no matter how long it takes – oh, wait, we’re talking about immigration background checks, not gun background checks? In that case, background checks are un-American, and you’re a bigot for bringing them up.
Honest to God, I was more upset reading about all that evidence being spoiled than I was when the attack was unfolding. (I was at work so I didn’t see it live.) I have never heard of anything like that happening. It goes against everything I’ve ever heard about police investigations.
Conspiracy theories? Try this on for size: Whether the order came from the head of the FBI, the Attorney General, or Obama himself, this investigation is being spiked. The government does not want the American people to know about the true extent of this plot.
And I don’t know which is more frightening; the fact that the investigation is being spiked or that they wanted to make sure we know it.
The same day, AG Lynch made her statement to the effect that their priority is protecting Muslims from attacks by outraged Americans.
The federal government has been heavily infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood operatives. They are in the law enforcement agencies and the intelligence agencies. There is nothing they would like more than if a “white militia” blew up a mosque or something. Then they can really go to town on us.
But for now, the official story is just that this one couple became “radicalized” and committed an act of “workplace violence”.
No terrorist cell. No mosques implicated. Move along, nothing to see here.
Obama sez:
“”We are Americans. We will uphold our values — a free and open society. We are strong. And we are resilient. And we will not be terrorized.”
Be comforted.
Frog:
Coincidentally, I just put up a post on the subject of Obama’s speech.
I’m with rickl.
It appears that this contaminating the crime scene is the doing of the Feds and that they cut the locals out of the communication chain prior to doing so. One suggested reason is that a criminal investigation would compromise some intelligence asset in place (or something like that). However, ass-covering (or treason…because at this point, I’m not sure it’s possible to tell the difference) is always the more likely explanation.