One Year Ago, FBI Insisted That 'Terrorist' Guy It Arrested Last Week Was No Threat At All

by Mike Masnick
Techdirt
Apr. 14, 2015

Last week, we wrote about the FBI arresting John Booker, who was involved in yet another of the FBI's own plots. At the beginning of our post (and the criminal complaint) against Booker, we noted how a year ago Booker had tried to join the army, and had then been denied after posting stuff to his Facebook page about how he was going to "wage jihad" and planned to die. It was noted that the FBI visited him at that time, and we found it odd that if he was such a threat, why wasn't he arrested then. Instead, it appears that months later, the FBI got together and concocted a ridiculous plot for Booker to join, in which the FBI itself did all the planning.

What he hadn't realized was that when the incident happened last year with Booker and his Facebook page, there was actually news coverage about it, with the FBI actually saying that they had investigated and Booker was no threat at all:

The alert, which was sourced to "an FBI agent," stated it was distributed to "inform and protect officers who may encounter this individual or others exhibiting the same aspirations."

Four days later, on Tuesday, the FBI downplayed the "routine" alert, saying it was not actively searching for Booker. The agency said it did not believe he posed an "imminent threat," despite the original alert's invocation of the Fort Hood shooting, where an Army psychologist killed 13 and wounded more than 30 on a Texas military base in 2009.

"We have interviewed this individual," an FBI spokesman said. "There is not a manhunt and there never was one. There is no imminent threat to public safety, nor should the public be concerned that this threat exists from an individual at large."

The reporter who wrote that above now works at the Intercept and has revealed more details, including the FBI's Situational Information Report after it had interviewed Booker a year ago. It notes that not only had Booker checked himself into a mental health facility a month earlier, but also that he basically had no way of carrying out any threat:

BOOKER does not have access to a vehicle or other form of transportation at this time, nor is there evidence he possess firearms.

It appears that Booker only became a real threat... once two FBI informants showed up and created the plot for him.