FBI Director (courtesy post-gazette.com)

One of the talking points being proffered this week by the “sacrifice a little essential liberty for an imagined security” crowd is the idea that a person suspected of some sort of crime (i.e., not actually convicted or even charged with a crime) should immediately have their civil liberties suspended, starting with the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Indeed, rumors started flying around the media claiming that the terrorist was on the list, and that it was outrageous that he was able to purchase equipment that he used to commit murder. Hillary, the ex-president’s wife, has exemplified this perspective in social media:

There’s a problem with this view. Actually, there are many problems, but the key that relates to the topic du jour is that this terrorist wasn’t actually on a watch list, according to FBI Director James Cormey.

The Hill has the story.

The man believed to have killed 49 people in a brutal rampage in Orlando, Fla., early on Sunday morning was on a federal watch list for roughly 10 months in 2013 and 2014, while he was the subject of an FBI probe.

But then Omar Mateen was taken off the list soon after the investigation ended in March of 2014, FBI Director James Comey said on Monday

“He was watch-listed with the opening of the preliminary investigation and he was taken off the watch list when the investigation was closed,” Comey told reporters.
That preliminary investigation was launched after coworkers complained that Mateen, who at the time was the guard at a Florida courthouse, reported that he had boasted about having connections to al Qaeda and other extremist groups. As part of the investigation, the FBI followed Mateen and had confidential sources meet with him, but the results were not enough to press forward, Comey said.

Had Mateen remained on the list, federal officials would have received a flag when he purchased two guns earlier this month….

Don’t you hate it when reality doesn’t fit the narrative?

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56 COMMENTS

  1. Unless you’re buying a gun from an atf plant south of the border I’m not aware of any place you can just buy a new gun, no questions asked. Not in this country at least.

    The hag, as usual, is full of shit.

  3. One of my first thoughts when I saw the news was that they were going to use this to talk up the “terrorist loophole” nonsense. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t get the FBI to play along and just say he was on the list, since there’s no way anyone could verify that. Then again, the FBI isn’t too chummy with the AG or WH right now.

    • Good point. Heck, Comey might be lying about him NOT being on the list for all we know, just to screw Hillary since he knows his investigation can’t proceed until a cooperative president is elected. Not like anyone would contradict him; that’s a sure-fire way to get light & oversight shed on the list, and we can’t have that!

      • The FBI cannot keep everyone on a watch list. It would become much too large, and useless, as there simply aren’t enough agents to properly manage it. They would have to limit agents to 15 seconds per case per day.They have to make judgement calls on the severity of a risk and sometimes those calls will be wrong. It can’t be helped.

    • “Then again, the FBI isn’t too chummy with the AG or WH right now.”

      I have been getting the same vibe myself.

  4. This is exactly why Dianne Feinstein just today (or perhaps yesterday) suggesting that anyone who had EVER been on the list should be restricted.

    They are sly, these anti-liberty, traitorous leftists.

        • Your right/privilege to apply may not be impeded, but first you have to find out if you are on a super-secret list to start with. Then you have to find out how to apply and how to pay for the legal representation you will undoubtedly need and to budget the time and effort necessary without losing your job and all the while your Constitutionally protected rights (privileges in Progressive Liberal speak) ARE being impeded.

          • Oh yes, you are free to apply (for now), but your application will be futile. That’s how these things work. Besides, with no known process for being removed from the lists, there is also no time limit by which the government MUST actually take action on the application,

  5. This FBI director would (and in this case rightly) be particular about the facts. He has a reputation for being fastidious in investigating, and highly ethical in his professional execution of duties. However, the facts here will be only a footnote to his ultimate dismissal. The AG already said Comey and the FBI are incompetent, clueless, second-rate investigators to think putting terrorists on a no-buy list might make it more difficult to investigate potential investigators. A political hack is always more capable than any mere career bureaucrat.

    There will be no indictment of Hillary, and Comey will be replaced if he recommends criminal charges.

  6. I don’t understand why the FBI is concerned about the Orlando shooter being on, then off the watch list. Isn’t the anti-gun element saying that once you get on a secret list, you cannot get off, thus if the no buy list had been in effect in 2014, the Orlando shooter could not buy a gun anywhere?

    • After rummaging through the Internet regarding the Orlando shoots is the disturbing trend I find in the belief “guilty til proven innocent”.

      That the fact he was investigated twice proves their belief in that he must be guilty of something. Touting his boast that “he knew a terrorist” as guilt. As well as his inability to get along with his coworkers.

      This crowd refuses to believe that maybe he was innocent and hadn’t turned radical just yet. This fits in to Feinstein forever on the watchlist pitch. Or Senator Mackin (WVA) let’s deny the gun rights for 5 years and see if they’re good Americans crap

      • If anything, this case bolsters their position. It’s hard to argue that the FBI was barking up the wrong tree when, in fact, this terrorist ultimately did commit a major act of terror. The “he wasn’t radicalized just yet at the time of the investigation” doesn’t hold water.

        I’m not arguing beforehand that if someone is investigated, then they must be guilty of something now or else are definitely planning something for the future. I am arguing that if someone commits a major act of terrorism now, then the fact that they had been investigated in the past is significantly more likely to have been a legitimate and worthy investigation.

  7. The FBI investigated Mateen and cleared him. The FBI investigated Nidal Malik Hasan (Ft. Hood) and cleared him. The Russian FSB warned US intelligence about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but the FBI cleared him. There are other examples of violent Islamic terrorists being on the FBI’s radar to no effect.

    I find it highly unlikely that these cases were simply FBI mistakes. Nobody could be that inept. Not even the FBI.

    • I normally scoff at conspiracy theories. But give the current resident of the oval office……

      • I was thinking the same thing today. I have always thought the Sandy Hook shooting and other conspiracy theories were total BS. I thought that no matter how much I dislike the current occupier of the white house that the guy wouldn’t be so low he would intentionally let a known terrorist run loose. But then again there has been so much lately that doesn’t add up. There have been to many times now that after something goes down that the first thing out of the idiots mouth is we need to restrict the rights of the law abiding. Then I started looking at the big picture. Gun running to Mexico and the blame being focused daily on the rogue gun dealers, the unbelievable number of Muslims with ties to terror groups or outright sympathy for radical Islam in positions of power put there by this adminstration. The large number of terrorists attacks blamed on anything but radical islam. The mess created in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. by obama policy. The constant attack by obama on the second amendment, and I am beginning to think it’s all part of his plan. I would not be the least bit surprised to find out that every one of these attacks could have been stopped but people were told to stand down or be fired.

      • “Never attribute to ineptitude that which is adequately explained by Progressive conspiracy.

      • I don’t give anyone a pass based merely on what my hopeful imagination holds is too low a depth for them to sink. Like many in here, I’ve just seen too much in history and directly, not to appreciate the depths of depravity accessible by anyone.

        That said, I do not believe in conspiracies surrounding Sandy Hook, 9-11, the OKC Bombing, the 1993 WTC bombing, the moon landing, JFK/Oswald, or Pearl Harbor, for examples. The evidence just isn’t there to support such theories, but some people like to play games or feel in the know or give meaning to their angst. However, such conspiracies and the conspiracy theories in general persist because, well, sometimes people do conspire. Sometimes governments commit or plot some pretty nasty things.

        Consider the burning of the German Reichstag in 1933. There’s still some minor uncertainty there as to whether the Nazis had it burned down to frame the communists all along. However, once the building burned down, the conspiracy to frame the communists for it was on.

        Or consider the Tuskegee Study here in America, where for forty years black men with syphilis were lied to and denied readily available treatment, even blocked from receiving treatment. The purpose was to research the health effects of untreated syphilis and to show the need for a treatment program. This isn’t ancient history; this continued up until the early 1970s.

        An interesting plan, actually carried out in Paris, involved the grand renovation of that city under Napoleon III in the late 19th century. Paris had been an overcrowded, crime-infested, unhealthy cesspool of tiny streets and cramped buildings for many generations by then, a point documented in the writings of numerous luminaries, including Hugo, Voltaire, and Balzac. There had been some scattered attempts at modernization over the years, but nothing transformative.

        Then, in 1848, revolutionary insurgencies swept across European cities, including Paris. The Parisian insurgents enjoyed a major tactical advantage in those old neighborhoods of narrow and difficult to navigate streets, which were easily blockaded and defended by street fighters.

        Once those days were past and Napoleon III was elected, he embarked on a renovation plan, supposedly for the purpose of addressing the lingering conditions previously mentioned. The real desire and design was to enable government troops to disperse rapidly throughout the city in the event of another uprising. The Paris that people admire and adore today, with its grandeur of beautiful and spacious boulevards, was actually built to ensure that rebellious workers could be crushed by the State.

        So I wouldn’t trust anyone with power, but neither would I consider a conspiracy theory until there was substantial proof of it.

    • I have no idea how the FBI conducts it’s investigations, but unless they are done surreptitiously, most investigatees would probably be on their best behavior if they thought they were being checked out. If an FBI agent showed me his badge and started asking question, I would be very careful of what I said.

    • I suspect two of them (not Hasan) were wound up by Confidential Instigators working for the Feral Bureau of Instigation.

      Isn’t it great that the FBI can generate crime, and then (usually) arrest the guy they talked into it? Sometimes the attacks take place and then the FBI has to bury the fact that they planned it or even made the bomb (Birmingham, Oklahoma City, …)

  8. Well, he wasn’t using an AR15 either, but that hasn’t stopped the media mavens from saying he did. Facts mean nothing to the “news” outlets these days.

  9. “Had Mateen remained on the list, federal officials would have received a flag when he purchased two guns earlier this month….”

    So, they are already tying the lists to NICS…. Does anyone believe that they wouldn’t find a way to stop the sale if they wanted to?

  10. Of course Omar Saddiqi Mateen wasn’t on the terrorist watch list. He belongs to a preferred minority victim group that is off-limits to routine LEO scrutiny, because political correctness.

    Nothing to see here. These aren’t the suspects you’re looking for. Move along.

    • Isn’t that the truth. If you were an OFWG wearing a Nuge shirt, you’re on that list for life.

  11. Is there anyone who has committed a Radical IslamicTerrorist attack using firearms within U.S. borders who failed to purchase the firearms used for being on the Terrorist Watch List or No Fly List? I am not recalling anyone. There may be some we;ve never heard about who tried to buy guns and got arrested by the Feds, bot I think everyone who actually committed an attack with a firearm “skated” under the radar because they were not on either list or had been cleared by the FBI.

    • Supposedly the San Bernadino guy got his guns through a friend/conspirator because he believed he was under investigation at that point. He had already been cleared by that time, but he didn’t know that.

  12. “The man believed to have killed 49 people ….” BELIEVED to have killed? WTF?

    • To play devil’s advocate. How many patrons may have been hit by bullets fired by Orlando PD?

      Doesn’t diminish in any way the scope of this tragedy

      • Yeah, I don’t think a lot of folks have seen the exterior of that breached wall; holy crap there were a lot of bullets flying through that place, and it wasn’t exactly bulletproof.

  13. Her message still works to help inflame her followers and gain more followers. Good luck telling them otherwise now.

  14. I’ve worked with the FBI on a few situations, and I was honestly never all that impressed with the agents that were assigned to the cases I was involved in, but i never thought they were completely inept. These situations with these terrorists being investigated and then cut lose can only be because of one of two things . . . either the FBI is incredibly inept, or they were told to back off. I honestly don’t know which, but I know time after time they have had good reason to consider people terrorists and keep them on a short leash and they have failed to do so with tragic results. Boston, Texas, California and Florida. Way too many coincidences.

    • What is the other major project of the DOJ, lately? You know all those cops who have been acquitted in the past several years? It’s a “civil rights shock test;” pushing back on decades of use of force precedent in order to destabilize race relations. I guarantee the agents who are tied up in the current batch of political prosecutions are wondering why they’ve been told to work on such weak cases when terrorists are slipping through the cracks…

  15. Hmm, so kind of like Florida’s stand your ground law ‘allowed’ George Zimmerman to kill Trayvon Martin?

    • If I remember, “stand your ground” was never introduced at Zimmerman’s trial. But I get your meaning.

  16. I was listening to a talk show here in WY. The woman, I didn’t get her name, was someone involved in the political scene here. She stated the FBI investigated the shooter and interviewed the coworkers who dropped a dime on him. The FBI reps stated that after interviewin the coworkers it was determined “they might be racially motivated” and so discounted their concerns and dropped the investigation. Sorry I cannot provide more info about the guest.

    • Why in the world would it matter if the informants were “racially motivated” if the information they provided was accurate? A bad guy gets an automatic pass just because the guy who took the time to turn in the info is a bigot?

      That’s as stupid as courts throwing out legitimate and damning evidence in a criminal case just because it was illegally (unconstitutionally) obtained. The evidence is what it is. If the guy who obtained it broke the law to do so, prosecute him for that violation, don’t penalize the rest of us for his crime.

      • Gee Cliff the neighbors of the San Berno duo stated they didn’t want to appear as Islamo-bigots if they called the po-leece over all the bomb making going on in the garage…jus sayin’. Nothin’ sez lovin’ like jihad…

  17. Totally inept is an understatement. My kid works at DoD and they were totally clueless about the Arab Spring-even if millions of us plebs could see what was going on. Don’t wanna’ be raciss(or PHOBIC)…

  18. “sacrifice a little essential liberty for an imagined security”

    Wasn’t it one of those old White men, maybe Ben Franklin, who said something about ‘those willing to yield freedom in exchange for a little serve neither’?

  19. I’m a big fan of TTAG, but really call into question your journalistic ethics when you print clear exaggerations of truth.

    “Hillary, the ex-president’s wife…”

    Let’s be honest – that’s about as far from a legitimate and traditional marriage as I’ve ever seen.

    • Aw c’mon- they DO have a kid who’s an exact cross between ’em(woof!)…

      • Hillary Clinton has no motherly love or motherly instincts to her. This is why Chelsea Clinton was conceived in a petri dish. She couldn’t stand the thought of Bill (or any man) touching her. Now another woman… ?

  20. Can the Government and the Main Stream Media please try to collude at least to the DNC level ? This has been a national event with stories and news footage that is questionable at best ! There are more questions and seriously more holes and wierd video that makes some one that does not wear a “Tin Foil Hat” scratch there Head….. Sorry to the victims ,survivors or what ever ever Version we we be told tomorrow… My dam near 90 year old Korrean Vet Grandfather was scratching his head “Mr Bloody not Bloody” when that person said they “crawled over blood soaked boddies” my grandpa said “horse Shit” I crawled over the dead and brave to gain cover “never got all the blood of my uniform from that day” …. This is a Man with highest level of Respect for both God and Country !
    Not a Conspiracy Nut , and may god bless the dead and I will pray for injured , but there are a lot of questions …..

  21. They are aware that Mateen was not on the watch list and this law would not have prevented him purchasing a firearm. The goal for the gun grabbers is to just get this law on the books, then they can play around with who ends up on the watch list. The intention of this law is not to prevent muslim terrorist from getting guns, but it will be used to block normally law abiding Americans who advocate for constitutional rights or speaks out against the leftist socialist agenda.

  22. So what the FBI Director is trying to tell you is .. “neither the Feds nor the local police are able to protect you. They can only show up at the scene of a crime and ‘tag-and-bag’ the victims. That is unless all Americans turn in their guns”.

    We have a right and responsibility to self-defense and no concessions can be made with regard to the 2nd Amendment and gun control.

  23. What a joke this whole thing is! Big Brother gets to be entrenched with the US Constitutional-Bill of Rights of every US citizen, and gets to deny who they wish of such liberties. Globalists / One-World governance types…Who will hold the keys to America freedoms….Don’t make me laugh! Maybe if it wasn’t common-core school education that didn’t teach revisionist history…People would realize that this is similar to the Old English issues that surrounded England during the Civil war incidents involving The Catholics vs The Protestants…When one religious group got in charge….They deprived the other group of rights, including the ability of that group to keep and bear arms….Which of course resulted in people of that group being legally slaughtered….Nice to see various parts of history about to repeat itself….I suggest everyone get busy, and fight the future ! **(next up…See which right-wing, libertarian group, or constitutionalis wind up on the Left-wing secret watch list ! Will Local/State/of Fed SWAT guys be kicking in your door to take your property, papers, personal effects, or your life…Are you a suspicious person posting **here**!? )**

  24. This was an epic fail with it’s genesis starting in the PC thought parade that we should not demonize what had every evidence of being the devil. This was this administration’s doing everything they could to tell the American public they were the problem by seeing the evidence as it was presented, evil personified. And what do they present as the “fix?” Expand gun free zones, eliminate due process, and further disarm law-abiding citizens and freedom loving patriots. I may be a minority, but I don’t trust the government to protect me, much less take my firearms and build a “safe zone” around me. If you jack-booted tyrants feel froggy, come and take them. I’ll meet you at the door. Molon Labe.

  25. So the Government let us down. We knew that. They are not interested in stopping mass shooters since it interferes with anti-gun legislation. We have a passive aggressive government that wants these events to happen.

  26. So, maybe it’s time to go full “Wag the Dog” on these guys.

    If your job is to run a terrorist watch list, and, you know, watch people who might be terrorists, and the guy who shot up a club in Orlando in the name of His Guy in the Sky … what good are you?

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