Good for Bruce Joiner. There are many, many unanswered questions about what happened at Garland, and about what the FBI was doing there. 60 Minutes ran a feature last March about the FBI’s curious role in the May 2015 Garland jihad attack at a free speech event co-organized by Pamela Geller and me. It was, predictably enough, viciously biased, sloppy, and incomplete, but it was nonetheless illuminating in raising a hard and unanswerable question: did the FBI want Pamela Geller and me dead?
Despite the fact that the jihad attack took place at our event, neither Geller nor I appear, except in one still photo, in the 60 Minutes piece. All they say is that “a self-described free speech advocate named Pamela Geller was holding a provocative contest.”
Despite all the predictable politically correct whitewashing and appeasement, CBS did a good job of highlighting a curious and still unexplained aspect of the attack: the FBI clearly knew the attack was coming (although it didn’t bother to inform us or our security team), as the FBI agent was right there, following behind the jihadis, whom he had encouraged to “tear up Texas.” But even though they knew the attack was coming, they didn’t have a team in place to stop the jihadis. They had one man there, and one man only. The jihadis were not stopped by FBI agents, but by our own security team. If the jihadis had gotten through our team, they would have killed Pamela Geller and me, and many others. (They would no doubt have loved to kill Geert Wilders, but he left before they arrived.)
The Daily Beast wrote in August 2016 about how this undercover FBI agent encouraged the jihadis. The Beast’s Katie Zavadski wrote: “Days before an ISIS sympathizer attacked a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, he received a text from an undercover FBI agent. ‘Tear up Texas,’ the agent messaged Elton Simpson days before he opened fire at the Draw Muhammad event, according to an affidavit (pdf) filed in federal court Thursday.”
What was the FBI’s game in telling them to “tear up Texas”? Why didn’t they have a phalanx of agents in place, ready to stop the attack? Or did they want the attack to succeed, so that Barack Obama’s vow that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” would be vividly illustrated, and intimidate any other Americans who might be contemplating defending the freedom of speech into silence?
We twice asked the FBI for an investigation into this matter. They ignored us. Of course. After all, it isn’t as if this happened to someone important, like Linda Sarsour.
“Victim of ‘Draw Muhammad’ ISIS-inspired terror attack sues FBI, accuses James Comey of cover-up,” by Todd Shepherd, Washington Examiner, October 2, 2017 (thanks to Marc):
The security guard wounded in a 2015 ISIS-inspired terrorist attack at the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, is suing the FBI, and argues the bureau is liable for his damages because an agent “solicited, encouraged, directed and aided members of ISIS in planning and carrying out the May 3 attack,” according to court documents filed Monday.
If the plaintiff, Bruce Joiner, doesn’t settle with the bureau, the case could shake loose hundreds of documents from both local and federal officials about what happened that day, and could answer the question of why an FBI agent was in a car directly behind the attackers and did nothing as the events unfolded.
In May of 2015, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi drove from their home in Phoenix to the Curtis Culwell center in Garland where the “Draw Muhammad” contest was being held, in a car loaded with three rifles, three handguns, and about 1,500 rounds of ammunition.
The two never made it inside, as guards, including Joiner, stopped them outside at a perimeter checkpoint, at which time Simpson and Soofi opened fire. Because the event was heavily guarded, the two were quickly shot and killed and barely made past the checkpoint where they opened fire.
Joiner was the only victim that day. He took a bullet to the left leg, and ISIS would later claim credit for orchestrating the attack, making it the first ISIS-backed terror event on U.S. soil.
Joiner’s lawsuit is seeking just over $8 million in damages, and argues that the FBI essentially allowed the attack to happen.
“The FBI helped the terrorists obtain a weapon that was used in the attack by lifting a hold during a background check, incited the terrorist to attack the Garland event, and even sent an agent to accompany the terrorists as they carried out the attack,” the court filing said.
The filing also alleged that former FBI Director Jim Comey lied in a “post-attack cover-up” about the bureau’s knowledge of how the attack unfolded and what Comey and the bureau knew about what was likely to transpire.
“In the aftermath of the attack, former FBI Director James Comey lied to the American people by claiming that Simpson was a needle in a haystack’ that was ‘invisible to us,'” the filing alleged. “Even after it had come to light that an undercover FBI agent had been communicating extensively with the terrorists during the week prior to the event and had accompanied them as they carried out the attack, the FBI continued to assert that “[t]here was no advance knowledge of a plot to attack the cartoon drawing contest.”
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Since the attack, a separate court case and a “60 Minutes” report in March revealed that an undercover FBI agent was in the car directly behind Simpson and Soofi when they opened fire, and was even taking pictures of the car about 30 seconds before the first shots were fired. That case even revealed that the agent had texted Simpson just weeks before with the message, “Tear up Texas.”
Shortly after the first shots were fired, the agent fled, and was briefly detained by Garland Police, as seen in a video still from WFAA TV in Dallas.
Because of a separate court case tangentially related to Simpson and Soofi, it’s known that the FBI had been monitoring Simpson for years, and that the FBI agent was undercover in the Phoenix ISIS cell had direct contact with them routinely in the months leading up to the attack.
Joiner’s attorney, Trenton Roberts told the Washington Examiner this year that he now believes the FBI might have been willing to let the attack unfold to even greater lengths.
“It seems like it had to have been one or the other,” Roberts told the Washington Examiner in April. “Just a complete botched operation where they [the FBI] don’t want the attack to actually take place, or, it’s something where they need the attack to take place in order for this guy [the agent] to advance in the world of ISIS.”
“And that’s really what I think. I think that they thought, ‘he’s undercover and in order to advance, he needed to get pictures or video of this attack,’ and then that would bolster his street cred within ISIS,” Roberts said….
mortimer says
Bruce Joiner is a hero two times.
gravenimage says
+1
Tom says
Agree. Left/Liberals are using every means to remove stephen paddock links that expose the killer’s links to democrat, antifa and ISIS.
when saudi/qatar funds are involved even politicians will fall over each other to hide facts about his links to jihadi organisation.
Dems have sold themselves to iranian Lobby to pass the nuke deal http://tinyurl.com/mcake4d
saudi/qatari pay both sides.
mortimer says
Agree with Tom. The Dems are selling out Americans and America’s allies. They are devoid of conscience while pretending to take the moral high ground. They are Academy-award HYPOCRITES.
Avenger says
Mortimer, I don’t think that McCain or Lindsey Graham are Democrats and they flushed us down the toilet with Saudi dollars.
Both parties are in bed with greasy Arab and Persian cash.
Rob Porter says
Mortimer, the FBI is now just a thoroughly corrupted, subverted organization just like most of America’s supposedly security agencies. To this foreigner it is astounding watching this circus. James Comey is nothing more than a mostly, though not entirely – I watched Trey Gowdy reduce him to a stammering fabricator – smooth talking liar. No less, Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Clapper, Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch, yet, amazingly in now thoroughly corrupted and seedy America – that I once admired – none of these get arrested and charged.
b.a. freeman says
it makes sense; the FBI needs to get into IS organizations, so they need to build up the “street cred” of their plant. they got so involved in that process that they lost track of their duty to protect the lives of their fellow citizens. the alternative is that mr. obama essentially put a hit out on ms. geller and mr. spencer. i’m sure that mr. obama would not have minded had geller and spencer been murdered, because it would have silenced 2 devastatingly effective opponents and furthered his agenda of putting a leftist dictatorship into power, but it could also have been incompetence or overwork of the agents involved. we must keep in mind that federal agents have not been familiarized with the evils of islam for 8 years or so, and like most of the rest of us, have been educated in leftist indoctrination centers (public schools), and thus have had no introduction to critical thinking, and have been awash in leftist propaganda from their kindergarten years. i have no doubt that most of them are working their tails off, and are perplexed about why the fight against terrorism is going so badly. they most likely assume that when the PC police tell everybody that the religion of (body) pieces is harmless, somebody else in the organization has verified that, because nobody in the organization ever contradicts the PC police. unfortunately for all americans, although the emperor is obviously naked, nobody has the ‘nads to say so.
mortimer says
It’s demoralizing to think the FBI could become so corrupted that it would INTENTIONALLY put the lives of Americans at risk of TERRORIST ATTACK and MURDER and work AGAINST THE CONSITUTIONAL freedom of speech.
They are all SWORN to uphold the Constitution, but they tried to SUBVERT the Constitution instead.
eduardo odraude says
Bizarre, no matter how you interpret it. Botched operation, or an operation willing to accept a “low” risk of collateral damage (since there was high security at the event) since the operation could give credibility to an undercover FBI agent trying to penetrate ISIS. Or, the third possibility would be an effort by someone in the FBI to get Robert, Pam, Geert and others killed, not on the orders of Comey or Obama, I think, but at the behest of ISIS or other Islamic organizations that might have penetrated the FBI.
Tama says
Well, “diversity enrichment ”
https://imghost.io/image/GOF5X
Kay says
A good reminder to pray for the protection of RS and PG.
gravenimage says
+1
More Ham Ed says
Support the civilized man.
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” – Pamela Geller 2012
gravenimage says
Hear, hear!
More Ham Ed says
Thank you gravenimage for your dedication to discussion & debate.
gravenimage says
Thank you.
Saipan Sam says
“…so that Barack Obama’s vow that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam…” ”
Let no one ever forget what a traitor president was.. and is. Almost every action this pimp of a man did weakened this nation. From our navy going down to 230 ships from over 300 under bush to handing Iran a free hand in developing nuclear weapons… Every move this pathetic pimp-traitor made was seemingly designed to make us weaker
God.. I do hate that man
mach37 says
Don’t forget embedding the DOD and DOJ with Muslims, who deleted Islamic references from the training manuals.
Gary's says
Well I am sure glad that they did not succeed in their attempt to silence you and Miss Gellar. I believe many of us would be completely in the dark about such a potentially life threatening ideology without you.
God knows where we would be without your honest reporting, countless hours spent dissecting Islamic doctrine for what it is
I would personal like to thank you, Gellar, all your staff and families,for your unwavering bravery and sacrifice. There are not to many who would stand day in and day out in the face of such a violent ideology. So I take my hat off to you.
Thank you
Ver Auger says
Where in the Constitution is the Federal government delegated the power to have its own police force? The answer is nowhere, and the 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Only the States can employ police forces like the FBI. Of course Comey and others should be prosecuted for criminal abuse of power, violations of the Hatch Act, and blatant conflicts of interest that boggle the mind. But, as long as the FBI exists, it will either be a non-partisan threat to Americans’ liberty, or a partisan one. J. Edgar Hoover, or James Comey, take your pick (I pick the former, warts and all), but there should not be an FBI. Let the states develop high-level coordination of police powers, to which they are Constitutionally entitled.
Ver Auger says
Along with deep-sixing the FBI, a Constitutional America would have no Bureau of ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) police, which would preserve our Second Amendment liberties, among others, and no CIA or NSA to violate our Fourth Amendment rights. The DEA cops would cease to exist. I am against the use of marijuana and narcotics for recreation or “fun”, but I am also against the use of government power to enforce prohibitions against those substances. Such prohibitions require, but do not have, the same sort of Constitutional Amendment that alcohol prohibition did. The FBI might best be prosecuted, at this point, as a Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organization under the “RICO” statute. Comey in leg-irons. Pinch me, I’m dreaming.
FYI says
Good for him.Defending the right of free expression.That includes the right to draw pictures of ANYTHING YOU LIKE,WHENEVER YOU LIKE.
No religious fascists have any right to tell you otherwise or stop you.
The thing about drawing cartoons of muhammed is that since no one actually knows what he looked like….it could just about be anybody.
it could be..
muhammed in a snow storm{Blank page}
muhammed?..oh no wait he might be a Sikh..
muhammed…or is it his cousin muhammed?
muhammed playing golf in the desert{picture of a dot in the distance}
muhammed and Aisha meet at the kindergarten…the first date..
muhammed in a flying saucer fighting Darth vader with a lightsaber.
muhammed and his black SLAVES visit Mr Farrakhan in a dream.
muhammed when he invented the steam engine/wrote the complete works of William Shakespeare/discovered america in the year734 {islamic history lesson}and beat the Greeks at the battle of Thermopylae with his arms and legs tied behind his back{lefty liberal alternative history for Swedish kids}etc
I’ve drawn them all..
{I once saw a cartoon that insulted ALL religions on an atheist website.
let’s just say,it took place on a cloud and involved an unwholesome activity that sometimes occurs in circles.Religions need to be able to deal with cartoons..}
Chand says
HO HO! That was really hilarious!
Thanks FYI, had a good laugh after ages.
Carlos Danger says
Comey ain’t yo homey.
David says
From remarks delivered by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein Delivers on Encryption at the United States Naval Academy Annapolis, MD:
“In May 2015, terrorists targeted people attending an event in Garland, Texas. On the morning of the attack, one of the terrorists exchanged 109 instant messages with an overseas terrorist. He used an app employing end-to-end encryption, so that law enforcement could not decode the messages.”
See: https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-remarks-encryption-united-states-naval