ANDREW KREIG: CONSERVATIVES BLAST OBAMA ON TERROR ATTACK, MISS KEY CLUES

More questions than answers on Orlando shootings as Brennan blows smoke over 9/11 report  

JUSTICE INTEGRITY PROJECT
By Andrew Kreig
06/17/2016

At the National Press Club this week, a panel of conservatives this week harshly attacked President Obama and his administration's handling of Orlando-type terrorism threats. Their partisan passion helps illuminate the nation's deep voter divides and lack of basic information even among elected officials about covert intrigues.

Author Philip B. Haney and four other current or former officials accused the president of leading an incompetent administration whose top law enforcers and other key personnel coddle radical Islamists.

Our column today reports on their allegations, which matched similar claims being raised by presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and conservatives elsewhere around the nation. Indeed, nearly half of the two dozen attendees at the press conference were Trump supporters who rose in near-unison several times to applaud the major panelists.

In Florida, RealClearPolitics reported, Florida Governor Rick Scott: "We're Fed Up" With Radical Islam.

A second part of our coverage will report facts about the Orlando massacre and the Obama administration that are trivialized or suppressed by both authorities and the mainstream media. These revelations show that at least some of the conservatives' complaints are valid even if many of the critics lack information on the root causes of their complaints.

The gist in our view is that top officials at the very highest levels apparently do not trust many subordinates and elected oversight officials with sensitive information even though the U.S. constitutional system requires that an elected congress maintain oversight over governmental operations. We provide on that in Part II of this report.

Haney

For now, we begin with the featured speaker June 14, Philip B. Haney, author and former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counter-terrorism expert.

Haney alleges that the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, hamstrings the DHS and other public safety personnel with this rule for suspects: "Even if a person is affiliated with a known terrorist organization you [the federal employee] can't assume he is a terrorist."

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and former Bush Administration Department of Defense Inspector General Joseph Schmitz were among those at the press conference endorsing Haney's warning and his new book, See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad, co-authored by WND editor Art Moore.

Bachmann, for example, said the FBI and DHS repeatedly thwarted her attempts to get answers to her questions on the kinds of security issues raised by Haney, even though she is an attorney who had been a member of the House Intelligence Committee before leaving office in 2015.

Haney complained that after he identified some 300 suspected "terrorists" from non-classified documents he was subjected to a federal grand jury probe and treated with such suspicion otherwise that he was ousted from his office, confined to cubicle, and forced to surrender the gun that he normally carried as part of his workday.

Haney and other panelists described his longtime concerns as especially timely following the fatal shootings in the early morning hours of June 12 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Authorities have said the shooter was Omar Mateen, 29, a security guard who had been been under repeated FBI investigation on suspicions of sympathy for radical terrorism.

Mateen was reported to have vowed allegiance to both ISIS and Al Qaeda as he used an AK-47 semi-automatic and a handgun for the killing spree that killed 49 nightclub patrons and staff at the gay club before police team killed him at approximately 5 a.m.

NATIONAL CONTROVERSY

The January 2014 file photo below shows ISIS warriors marching in Raqqa. Serious questions linger about how the group has supplied itself with trucks, foreign fighters, arms and funding from oil smuggling over arid conditions in skies dominated by opponents.

Before the rampage, Mateen had been employed by the giant global security firm G4S beginning in 2007.

Mateen was born in Queens, NY. His father Seddiqui Mateen is an Afghan-born public affairs commentator who in recent years has hosted a U.S.-based radio show on the congressionally funded Voice of America.



The shootings left more 50 wounded in addition to the 49 killed during the three-hour rampage and standoff.

The tragedy has fostered fear of terrorism, plus tensions regarding other hot-button issues that include gun control, and the status of gays, Latinos and Muslims. Trump promptly used the attack to suggest that President Obama secretly sympathises with terrorists: Trump blames Obama for attack, calls for ban on Middle Eastern immigrants.

Trump

As also reported in the Washington Post, Trump reiterated his suggestion the president was complicit in the Orlando attack and he cited a 2012 document to claim administration “support” for the Islamic State. Details are here: Trump says he was ‘right’ about Obama and terrorists, citing questionable 2012 intelligence cable. Trump also criticized presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump was not alone in raising many questions about why the shooting occurred, as reported by the Washington Post in Republicans join Obama in rebuking Trump.

Obama's rebuttal was delivered at the White House in his Remarks by the President After Counter-ISIL Meeting. Clinton also responded with harsh attacks on Trump.

HANEY'S 'SAY NOTHING' ALLEGATIONS

Philip Haney was the featured speaker for June 14 press conference, whose sponsorship and speaker roster were not widely disseminated in advance. The listing on the press club's website announced little more than that former Obama officials would be criticising the administration. Yet Haney was originally hired by DHS during the Bush administration, which inflicted the reprisals upon him. Another speaker was contractor William Ferri, former CPB assistant Port Director for the Port of New York / Newark at DHS until he ended a long career in federal service in 2014. 

The announcement failed to identify a sponsoring organization aside from listing Jeff Epstein as a contact. Jeffrey M. Epstein is a longtime conservative activist whose organizations previously opposed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, the current Secretary of State.

Kerry

Like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Epstein's group alleged that Kerry had exaggerated his Vietnam War record, a claim Kerry and other Democrats long ignored until the Kerry candidacy incurred serious public relations damage.

Haney's author's bio states that he studied Arabic culture and language while working as a scientist in the Middle East before becoming a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security's predecessor office in 2002 as a Customs & Border Protection (CPB) agriculture officer.

At the new DHS, Haney became an armed CBP officer and served several tours of duty at the National Targeting Center near Washington, DC, where he quickly was promoted to its Advanced Targeting Team.

He is reported to have won numerous awards and commendations from his superiors for compiling information and "producing actionable reports that led to the identification of hundreds of terrorists." He has specialized in Islamic theology and the strategy and tactics of the global Islamic movement. He retired in July 2015. His co-author Art Moore, who was present at the panel discussion, is an editor for WND (World Net Daily), the book's publisher.

Haney began his talk by repeating an oath of office to the Constitution. The video production company Black and Blond media, led by Bob Parks and Laura Erickson, published this video of Haney's talk.

Haney's book, released May 24, asserts that the national campaign by the DHS to raise public awareness of terrorism and terrorism-related crime known as "If You See Something, Say Something" but has effectively become "If You See Something, Say Nothing." 

"Haney's insider, eyewitness account, supported by internal memos and documents," WND's book publicity says, "exposes a federal government capitulating to an enemy within and punishing those who reject its narrative."

Highlights include: 

How the Bush administration stripped him and other frontline officers of their ability to define the threat; 

How much the Obama administration knew in advance of the Boston Marathon bombing and how it launched an ongoing cover-up on behalf of a major ally; 

The administration’s stealth policy to protect Islamic leaders with supremacist beliefs and violent-jihadist ties, allowing them to freely travel between the U.S. and the Middle East; 

The scope of access to the White House and the classified information the Obama administration gave to members of Muslim Brotherhood front groups; and 

The damning intelligence on Muslim Brotherhood-linked leaders invited to sit at the table and help form national-security policy.

Bachmann, who wrote the Foreword to Haney's book, Gohmert, Ferri, and Schmitz each supported the author's views, and described their frustration at what they regarded as Obama administration lapses in investigating suspected terrorists and their backers. In The Hill, Haney amplified his concerns last December to a Capital Hill audience in, Administration nixed probe into Southern California jihadists.

SHOULD CONGRESS AND FBI KEEP SECRET WHO FUNDED 9/11 TERRORISTS?

Following their remarks, the Justice Integrity Project asked Gohmert and Bachmann whether support release of a still-sealed 28-page section of a 2002 congressional report identifying who funded 9/11 terrorists.

The importance is because the answers help determine whether critics simply want to bash opponents for partisan purposes -- or seek to understand long-suppressed and emerging evidence on the funding sources for terror, including the attacks that caused three World Trade Center buildings to collapse in New York and massive carnage at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gohmert and Bachmann told us separately as they were leaving that they supported release of the 28 pages of the Joint Senate-House Intelligence Committee investigation.

The Bush administration and later the Obama administration have sought to keep the probe secret on supposed national security grounds. Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) is shown in a file photo at left. He co-authored the Senate-House report but who is forbidden to discuss its contents, is among those who say there is nothing in it violating national security. Graham has, however, described the 28 pages as a "smoking gun" implicating Saudi Arabia in the attacks. The Saudi monarchy and its defenders have denied the claim.

House Resolution 779 calls for enforcing the Constitution's separation-of-powers principle by directing the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Intelligence to publish in the Congressional Record the 28 pages redacted from the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. The resolution cites President George Washington's Farewell Address warning against paying "habitual" homage toward any foreign nation.

Others in the House with the same message include Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY), whose views are shown in the graphic.

House support for release has reached 70 co-sponsors, advocates say, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), as reported in New House Resolution Directs Intel Committee to Release 28 Pages From 9/11 Report.

The release and the related issue of whether 9/11 families can sue terrorist financiers remains timely. Federal courts in New York City have protected the Saudi government from litigation in part because the Obama administration seeks to protect relations with Saudi officials on the grounds of national interest.

CIA Director John Brennan, whose key posting earlier in his 25-year career with the agency was as head of its station in Saudi Arabia, has long opposed release of the congressional report. More recently, he has taken the fallback position that if the report is released its findings should be regarded as preliminary and otherwise flawed.

In a similar stand-off, the FBI has refused to respond to Freedom of Information Act litigation seeking release of information about a separate inquiry an external oversight board for the FBI conducted in 2011 on the 9/11 attacks.

Members of the board, including FBI Director James Comey,

second from the right, are shown in an FBI photo, with 

further description in an appendix

Investigative reporter Dan Christensen of FloridaBulldog.org, working closely with Graham and noted author Anthony Summers, has taken the lead in seeking the FBI information and reported complete lack of progress this week in a column in FOIA lawsuit disputes 9-11 Review Commission effort to discredit sensational FBI report.

The kingdom has threatened the United States with financial reprisal if Americans are able to pursue actions in court against the Saudis regarding 9/11 claims. The monarchy has voiced other complaints against the United States, including failure to overthrow the Syrian government of Bashar Al-Assad with more forceful actions.

President Obama granted an audience June 17 with the monarchy's number two leader and heir apparent, Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman, who met June 16 with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, as shown below.

The royal visit coincided also with a narrow victory in the House for the Obama administration and mostly Republicans to support the Saudis in using cluster bombs in the war against Yemen begun in March of last year to reinstall a ruler that Yemen's Houthis had overthrown. As reported by The Intercept in Worried About “Stigmatizing” Cluster Bombs, House Approves More Sales to Saudi Arabia, the United States policy continues to be use cluster bomb technology opposed by 119 other nations as inhumane to civilians in support of what many human rights advocates describe as an illegal war of aggression by the Gulf monarchies that is inflicting vast civilian death and other suffering upon Yemen.

WHY?

In sum, the events of the past week ranging from Orlando to the nation's capital pose many serious questions. Part II of this coverage reports facts suppressed by the mainstream media that clarify why mysteries remain and terror unfolds as it does in the United States and overseas.

Andrew Kreig

Andrew Kreig, Esq.

Andrew Kreig is Justice Integrity Project Executive Director and co-founder with over two decades experience as an attorney and non-profit executive in Washington, DC. An author and longtime investigative reporter, his primary focus since 2008 has been exploring allegations of official corruption and other misconduct in federal agencies. He has been a consultant and volunteer leader in advising several non-profit groups fostering cutting-edge applications within the communications industries.

  

As president and CEO of the Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) from 1996 until 2008, Kreig led its worldwide advocacy that helped create the broadband wireless industry. Previously, he was WCAI vice president and general counsel, an associate at Latham & Watkins, law clerk to a federal judge, author of the book Spiked about the newspaper business and a longtime reporter for the Hartford Courant.

Listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World from the mid-1990s and currently, he holds law degrees from the University of Chicago School of Law and from Yale Law School. Reared in New York City, his undergraduate degree in history is from Cornell University, where he was a student newspaper editor, rowing team member, and Golden Gloves boxer.

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