Posted on 06/28/2016 7:03:51 PM PDT by rickmichaels
Senior Obama administration officials refused to appear before Congress on Tuesday to explain the recent decision to purge all references to “Islamic terrorism” and radicalism from public documents, according to disclosures made Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
Top officials from the Justice Department and FBI declined to appear on Capitol Hill to answer questions from lawmakers about domestic terror attacks and an administration policy of scrubbing references to Islamic terrorism and similar terms from government materials, lawmakers said.
The policy has thwarted attempts by federal authorities to stop an increasing series of terror attacks from taking place on United States soil, according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), chair of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on oversight.
In the past year the Obama administration has twice ordered that mentions of the terror group ISIS and “Islamic terrorism” be purged “from highly significant public records,” Cruz said.
One such effort took place in the aftermath of the recent terrorist shooting in Orlando in which the administration censored 911 transcripts of calls made by the shooter.
These efforts came amid other campaigns by the Department of Homeland Security to force its personnel to remove references to “jihad,” “sharia,” and other similar terms from material focused on methods to counter violent extremism, Cruz said.
“I would like nothing more than to speak with a government official about these bizarre decisions and omissions, especially in light of the most recent terrorist attack in Orlando by a radicalized man who had been interviewed three times by the FBI,” Cruz said.
“Indeed, this subcommittee invited two such witnesses: John P. Carlin, an assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and Michael B. Steinbach, the executive assistant director for the FBI’s National Security Branch,” he said. “Both have refused to appear.”
Cruz blamed the administration’s policy for contributing to recent terror attacks in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Boston.
There has been a “consistent effort by this administration to scrub any reference to radical Islamic terrorism, to pretend the threat does not exist, and tragically as a consequence of that, over and over again, we have instances where the administration has ample evidence of radical Islamic terrorists,” Cruz said.
“The consequence of a willful blindness, of a policy that is a matter of administration policy, refusal to acknowledge the threat, means over and over again this administration has allowed the threats to go forward,” he added.
The administration “had declined to appear and explain” this policy and rationale behind it despite multiple requests from Congress.
“Are government officials prohibited from debating anything about Islam?” Cruz asked. “We would like to hear an explanation for that.”
The efforts to avoid using these terms have been longstanding in the Obama administration.
Muslim advocacy groups forced the FBI to purge some 876 documents from its training materials because they were deemed “offensive” in March 2012, Cruz explained.
“One article was purged because it was ‘highly inflammatory’ and ‘inaccurately argues the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization,’” he added.
In lieu of the Obama administration officials, the subcommittee heard from a range of outside terrorism experts and the government whistleblower who disclosed attempts by the Obama administration to purge many names from the U.S. terror watch list.
The Obama administration has come under further criticism for failing to properly combat ISIS abroad, a strategy that some lawmakers say could enable the terror group to carry out attacks inside the United States.
“I fear that in spite of continued attacks on our homeland, our military response to ISIS does not adequately reflect the direct nature of this threat to the United States,” Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a separate Tuesday hearing on the U.S. strategy to combat ISIS.
“I think many of us grow frustrated when the administration’s optimistic rhetoric often does not match the results,” Corker said.
The GOP did NOTHING as Americans were murdered.
Boston. Nothing.
Orlando. Nothing.
Oh, the GOP did keep themselves EXEMPT, and passed
ObamaTRADE, too, and funded incurable tuberculosis
to be Quartered in EVERY State.
I think Obama has made common cause with our enemies.
Zer0 is one of them. A muslin jihadi pledged to transform this country. We know it was meant to be free. We now know it is intended to be a sharia part of the caliphate.
Soon when you search anything about the Obama Years you’ll get 404 Error
I imagine an alternate world in which Rudolph Hess landed in England in 1940, wearing his Nazi uniform, and the British people rose up and threw out Winston Churchill and elected Hess as Prime Minister.
That’s pretty much what the US did in 2008.
Obama claims Islamic Privilege in not allowing appearances.
The ignorant MFers running our USA government still insist islam is a valid “religion”. Therein lies the main problem.
Outlaw islam and eliminate 99% of threats to innocent people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bThaR3A3Xc&index=27&list=RDMeh5BXBdx_A
They are called “subpoenas”. Congress can issue them, as many and as often as pleases them.
L
If congress really wants thwse cretins to trstify, they can compel them.
It is all theater.
So what? They’d just bold faced lie through their teeth anyway. It’s all they ever do.
Everything about the Obama admin is a big fat lie. Do the democrats really think the country will elect Hillary after such a decrepit, irresponsible, incompetent Obama admin?
Most people are sick to death of them. They’re making tricky Dick Nixon look like a saint.
That’s pretty much what the US did in 2008.
A very large percentage of our population has been convinced that they can show they're both clever and virtuous by voting for leaders who really want them dead.
Locked and loaded!
If this keeps up...I predict ‘vigilante justice’. No, not condoning. It’s what happens when a populace feels like their appointees have failed them. Psychology 101.
It is all theater.
Yeah, they could, but...
The bacon-wrapped shrimp are calling.
Uh, George W Bush was no Winston Churchill.
Bookmark
It’s really true.
It’s like someone in a bad part of town, at 1 AM, walking down the sidewalk, and noticing that up ahead there is a crowd of 8 black yutes. To turn around and go the other direction would be racist, right? You don’t want to be a racist, do you? So, of course, you mosey down the sidewalk and try to pass through the crowd of 8 yutes.
Who then beat your ass.
But, on the bright side, you’re not a racist.
You nailed it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.