Category: Fbi
FBI stops radical pro-Palestinian New Year’s Eve terror plot: Report
Federal authorities reportedly disrupted a New Year’s Eve terror plot by arresting several alleged members of a pro-Palestinian extremist group.
The FBI told Fox News Digital that the bureau captured four alleged members of an extremist subgroup of the Turtle Island Liberation Front.
‘The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.’
FBI Director Kash Patel described the arrested individuals as members of “a radical offshoot” that is “motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology.”
According to Patel, the suspects were planning coordinated improvised-explosive-device attacks on New Year’s Eve at five locations across Los Angeles, California.
Federal agents arrested the suspects in Lucerne Valley, where they were allegedly preparing to test explosive devices ahead of the attack, Fox News Digital reported.
The arrested individuals were charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Patel announced that FBI New Orleans arrested a fifth individual believed to be tied to the subgroup who was also allegedly planning a separate attack.
The FBI director credited investigators and law enforcement partners for saving “countless lives.”
FBI Los Angeles is expected to hold a press conference on Monday to provide additional details to the public.
RELATED: How Trump can dismantle far-left extremist networks
Pam Bondi. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
“After an intense investigation, the Department of Justice, working with our @FBI, prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California (Orange County and Los Angeles),” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated. “The Turtle Island Liberation Front — a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group — was preparing to conduct a series of bombings against multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The group also planned to target ICE agents and vehicles.”
“PROTECT THE HOMELAND and CRUSH VIOLENT CRIME. These words are not slogans, they’re the investigative pillars of this FBI,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said.
“Thank you to our dedicated law enforcement and DOJ partners for the collaborative effort. God bless America, and all those who defend Her [sic].”
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Hunter Biden Laptop Update!
Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hunter Biden’s Infamous Laptop Judicial Watch Sues Boston Mayor for Details of Mariachi Band Press Conference Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hillary Clinton’s Brother, Tony Rodham Billions of Tax Dollars Spent in Failed Effort to Rebuild Afghanistan Judicial Watch Sues for FBI Records on Hunter […]
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Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for FBI Records on Hillary Clinton’s Brother, Tony Rodham
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for FBI records on Hillary Clinton’s deceased brother, Tony Rodham (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:25-cv-04237)). Judicial Watch sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the […]
The post Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for FBI Records on Hillary Clinton’s Brother, Tony Rodham appeared first on Judicial Watch.
WATCH: Jake Tapper Describes Pipe Bomb Suspect As ‘White Man,’ Airs Photo Disproving His Claim Minutes Later
CNN anchor Jake Tapper described the alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber as a “white man” on Thursday—then aired a photo showing that was clearly not the case.
The post WATCH: Jake Tapper Describes Pipe Bomb Suspect As ‘White Man,’ Airs Photo Disproving His Claim Minutes Later appeared first on .
‘Your nightmare is finally over’: Trump pardons Texas Democrat who opposed Biden’s border policy
More than a year and a half after a Democrat congressman was indicted on federal charges under the Biden presidency, President Trump has announced that he will be granting an “unconditional pardon.”
On Wednesday morning, President Trump announced on social media that he will be granting a “full and unconditional PARDON” for embattled Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar.
‘It has tested our faith in ways we never expected, but it has not broken it. We still believe in justice.’
In the post, President Trump slammed Joe Biden for weaponizing the Department of Justice and the FBI against his political opponents — including members of his own party.
Trump suggested that Cuellar was targeted by the Biden regime because of his unflinching demands for tighter border security.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH. It is unAmerican and, as I previously stated, the Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country,” Trump said in the post.
“Because of these facts, and others, I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
In the Truth Social post, Trump included a letter written by the Cuellars’ daughters, Christina and Catherine, who asked for a full and unconditional pardon.
In the letter, they wrote, “This ordeal has taken a deep emotional and financial toll on all of us. It has tested our faith in ways we never expected, but it has not broken it. We still believe in justice. We still believe in America — a country built on truth, fairness, and compassion, even during the hardest of times.”
Cuellar and his wife were indicted on several federal charges related to bribery in May 2024, though they were never convicted.
At the time, Trump said, “Biden just Indicted Henry Cuellar because the Respected Democrat Congressman wouldn’t play Crooked Joe’s Open Border game. He was for Border Control, so they said, ‘Let’s use the FBI and DOJ to take him out!’ This is the way they operate.”
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Massie: FBI threatened his staff if he didn’t ‘play ball’ over pipe-bomb investigation
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said an FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of his staff over his persistent investigation and questioning on the Jan. 6 pipe bombs.
An FBI official threatened to open a criminal investigation on one of Massie’s staff “if we didn’t straighten up [and] play ball,” Massie told Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker in an interview broadcast on Matt Kibbe’s “Free the People” podcast and posted to X.
‘Even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.’
“I’m going to say this here on camera because it’s important. … He said … ‘We’re going to investigate one of your staff for fraud,’” Massie quoted the unnamed FBI official as saying. “And he told another one of my staff this: ‘If you guys don’t straighten up, you know, if you want to play hardball, if this is how you want to play it’ or something like that, ‘this member of your staff is going to get criminally investigated for fraud’ — a very specific threat.”
Massie declined to identify the official he says levied the threat, but said he did complain about it to FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
“I told Bongino, I said, ‘One of your guys is threatening my guys with an FBI investigation if we don’t do what you want.’ And he [Bongino] said, ‘I’ll take care of that.’ ’Cause even he understood that was not a good look. Probably illegal.”
Massie said he later received a “non-apology” text from the official that said, “‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.’”
“He didn’t apologize. He was unrepentant, let’s say, really.”
Massie has been the most aggressive member of Congress investigating the pipe bombs found behind the Capitol Hill Club at 12:43 p.m. on Jan. 6 and under a park bench on the southwest side of the Democratic National Committee building 22 minutes later. In the same interview with Baker, Massie also disclosed that recent Blaze News reporting has caused him to be “99% certain” that some U.S. Capitol Police officials had a role in the planting of the pipe bombs found on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I went from 90% certain that some Capitol Police were involved in the Jan. 6 pipe bomb to 95% certain, and now I’m at 99% certain after this new story that you put out this week,” Massie told Baker.
“I’m doing this on probability. The probability may even be higher than that.”
His comments reflect Blaze News’ recent reporting on a former Capitol Police officer who was an apparent forensic match to the bomb suspect, follow-up reporting on the manner in which the second device was discovered by plainclothes Capitol Police officers, and the stonewalling the congressman charges that he faced from Capitol Police in the course of his own investigation. Assistant Police Chief Ashan Benedict, whom Massie named as having specifically blocked his investigation, retired last week.
The Kentucky Republican also expressed frustration that FBI Director Kash Patel seems to have made little more progress than his predecessor, Director Christopher Wray. In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, as well as a follow-up with independent reporter Catherine Herridge, Patel promised that major developments are incoming, but was scant on details.
A CBS story published Tuesday cited three unidentified sources stating that the FBI had cleared the police officer who appeared to match a forensic gait analysis of the bomber, citing “an alibi: video of her playing with her puppies at the time the devices were placed.” Blaze News has sought to obtain independent confirmation of the FBI’s clearance based on the alibi.
Blaze News reported Nov. 8 on a forensic match to a former Capitol Police officer, based on a computer analysis of the hoodie-wearing alleged pipe bomber’s manner of walking compared to that of the person. The algorithm rated the person as a 94% match, while the intelligence analyst who ran the study for Blaze News put the match closer to 98%. The person has since denied any allegations, through her attorney.
FBI photos
Blaze News reported Nov. 18 that two Capitol Police counter-surveillance special agents sent out to look for more explosives after the discovery of the Capitol Hill Club device were seen on video going to the DNC building and to a nearby bush on the side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building.
Independent video investigator Armitas discovered that the hoodie-wearing suspect identified in 2021 as the pipe bomber stopped at the bush along a sidewalk on the north side of the CBCI building at 7:47 p.m. Jan. 5. The suspect sat cross-legged at the shrub and appeared to rummage through a backpack before leaning into the bush as if attempting to place something underneath.
The bomb suspect then stood up and walked back to the DNC bench, where a pipe bomb was placed at 7:54 p.m., according to choppy video released by the FBI.
‘He had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.’
When Capitol Police dispatch warned of the Capitol Hill Club bomb at 12:43 p.m., two plainclothes Capitol Police special agents took a nearly six-minute drive to reach the Capitol Hill South Metro Station, one block from the Capitol Hill Club bomb scene. They then walked to the DNC building, passing the park bench the pipe bomb sat next to.
The agents continued walking until they reached an alley leading to the side of the CBCI building. Their movements were not captured on video because four Capitol Police security cameras that would have shown the DNC crime scene were turned away at key moments or pointed in another direction by default.
Massie’s office released video in July 2023 showing a man in dark clothing and a ball cap approaching a U.S. Secret Service SUV sitting in the driveway of the DNC building as part of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ security detail. Harris was inside the building when the pipe bomb was discovered.
Blaze News reported in January 2024 that this man was the plainclothes Capitol Police officer who discovered the pipe bomb under a bush at the foot of a park bench at the DNC building.
Following that story, Massie told Blaze News he was determined to interview the agents, but did not get much cooperation from Capitol Police. Massie referred to the agents as “man-bun guy” and “backpack guy” (the one who discovered the bomb).
‘Weirdest meeting’
The Capitol Police never made “backpack guy” available to the Massie, but on Jan. 30, 2024, they did eventually send his partner, accompanied by his commander, Benedict, to speak with the congressman in a meeting that was not recorded or transcribed.
“So they came over to my office, but not ‘backpack guy,’” Massie said. “’Man-bun guy’ came over, and he had a handler, who would often interrupt and answer questions for him.”
Two congressional investigators sat in on the meeting alongside Benedict, the police officer, and Massie. The congressman later described the interview as the “weirdest meeting in the world.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said an FBI official threatened a criminal investigation of his staff if he didn’t “play ball” on the Jan. 6 pipe bomb investigation.Photo courtesy of Free the People
“In the conversation with the counter-surveillance officer in my office, Ashan Benedict would frequently interrupt the officer, answer before the officer could reply, or qualify the officer’s answers,” Massie told Blaze News. “There was an effort by our committee staff to get Benedict to sit for a transcribed interview, but he successfully evaded that effort.”
Massie said he still wants to interview the officer who actually found the bomb, as well as his partner and Benedict. “Those need to be transcribed interviews. They need to be sworn in. I feel very strongly about that,” he said. “But the reality is the FBI should be doing these things.”
Massie said that after he reposted the Blaze News article on the gait analysis, Bongino called him to complain about two early persons of interest mentioned in the piece.
One of those men, named in FBI reports as Person of Interest 3, lived directly next door to the Capitol Police officer who was the subject of the Nov. 8 Blaze News article. The FBI’s Special Operations Group conducted surveillance on Person of Interest 3 in Falls Church, Va., for two days in January 2021, but surveillance was suddenly canceled, before any law enforcement officer ever questioned the man.
Massie said Bongino told him, “‘That’s a dead lead. … We investigated that lead and … there’s nothing there. There’s no there there.’ So that’s why they quit looking at it. … At that point I said, ‘But you guys weren’t — you never did suspect him. The FBI never did suspect him. … His build doesn’t match. There’s no way it could be him. Your guys were looking for somebody else.’”
Whistleblower concerns
A current FBI supervisory special agent on Nov. 10 filed a whistleblower protected disclosure with Massie and U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), alleging the termination of surveillance at the Falls Church condominium complex was improper and cut off a suggestion by a surveillance team member that Person of Interest 3 be questioned face-to-face at his doorstep.
Person of Interest 3 and Person of Interest 2, his alleged houseguest on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, had not been questioned by the FBI when surveillance was terminated. Interviews took place six days later, according to FBI reports included in the whistleblower disclosure. An FBI agent pretending to be a Metro Transit police officer interviewed Person of Interest 3 over the phone, a congressional source told Blaze News.
The whistleblower’s “concern was that the investigation that went to Falls Church, Virginia, that got them to the doorstep of the person that [Blaze News] identified through gait analysis as possibly somebody that might have been the person in the hood,” Massie said.
“There were suggestions made to the people in charge of the investigation about how to follow up on those leads,” Massie said. “And it was just dropped after two days of surveillance. And he [the whistleblower] provided supporting documents to that effect.”
Capitol Police block off the intersection of 1st and C streets in response to discovery of a pipe bomb at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police
Massie said Bongino made reference to the FBI conducting a meeting to address the whistleblower disclosure. “He didn’t say, ‘We’re trying to find the whistleblower,’” Massie said. “But my Spidey sense went off, and I almost said to him in that moment, ‘You better not be trying to find the whistleblower, because law protects that individual.’ But I didn’t say it.”
Massie said he thought about this when recalling the threat he said his staff received from the FBI official.
“I have to tell all the listeners this because this is the context in which I’m worried for the whistleblower,” Massie said. “If they’re willing to retaliate against a congressional office, which has speech or debate immunity and a lot of other protections, they may be willing to retaliate against the whistleblower.”
The whistleblower’s attorney, Kurt Siuzdak, sent a letter to Massie and Loudermilk on Nov. 13, warning that if the FBI attempted to out the whistleblower, it would violate the supervisory agent’s protections under the law. Massie shared the letter on social media.
“Identifying the whistleblower serves only one purpose,” Siuzdak wrote, “which is to allow FBI management to retaliate.”
In a Nov. 13 post on X, Bongino accused Massie of throwing “BS bombs” and denied that the FBI sought to identify or retaliate against the Nov. 10 whistleblower. A Blaze News request to Bongino for further comment went unanswered.
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Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for FBI Secret Room Records!
Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for FBI Records Found in Secret Room Judicial Watch Sues Education Department Over University’s China Ties Judicial Watch Files Claim for Monk Arrested by Biden DOJ/FBI Appeals Court: Students Can Use Transgender Classmates’ Biological Pronouns Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for FBI Records Found in Secret Room Judicial Watch […]
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