Sunday, during CNN’s coverage of the alleged terror attack in Boulder, CO, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe objected to the FBI’s “rush” to call the incident “terror.”
The suspect, identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who was in the country on an expired visa, reportedly yelled “Free Palestine while allegedly using a “makeshift flamethrower.”
McCabe said such a statement, declaring terrorism by FBI Director Kash Patel, was “hard to imagine.”
Patel made his declaration on social media.
“They don’t have a clear idea that they’re willing to communicate to the rest of the world yet of even exactly what happened, who was there, how they were attacked with fire, and what the purpose or the motive of that attack might have been,” McCabe said. “So he was very, very clear to say that they’re not drawing any conclusions about terrorism or anything else at this point. They’re trying to figure out who they have in custody and what that person might have done and who he was trying to hurt with that action. So it’s hard to imagine that the FBI has more or better information at this point to kind of rush out with the conclusion within like 10 minutes after we all started hearing about this, that it’s a targeted act of terror. It may very well be, but most of the time you try to be very careful about attaching that label to an attack until you have solid evidence that indicates a motive that would qualify as terrorism, like an act intended to intimidate a population or to change the impact, change the direction of government, that sort of thing.”
He added, “Those are all parts of the terrorism statute. So I think we go with what we’re hearing from the folks who are closest to the event at this point. And they do have a lot of work to do, but they seem to be on top of it. And we’ll hear from them again tonight, apparently.”
(h/t Daily Caller)
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