Tag Archives: FBI agents

Rep. Clay Higgins says he’s going after FBI for putting Trump supporters on Watchlist

Clay-Higgins

Important Takeaways:

  • They’re Going Down’: Rep Clay Higgins Insists He’s Going After FBI Agents Who Put Trump Supporters On Terror Watchlist After January 6th
  • Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA) claims that FBI agents pursued Trump supporters relentlessly following the events of January 6th, even placing them on a domestic terror watchlist.
  • Higgins’ revelations surfaced in an interview with investigative journalist Lara Logan for her ‘Truth in Media’ series.
  • Logan has been posting videos documenting pieces of the January 6th protest at the Capitol to provide better overall context to the events that took place.
  • Higgins, who has confronted FBI Director Christopher Wray on multiple occasions over the bureau’s role in the riot, was her most recent guest.
  • Perhaps the most captivating of Higgins’ claims involves Trump supporters allegedly being placed on a terror watchlist.
  • The Louisiana lawmaker suggested that a letter sent from Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) to DHS was the catalyst for “an executive action by the TSA to use its authority to instruct America’s air marshals to track and follow Trump supporters that have been charged with no crime.”
  • “They were guilty only of arriving by air into DC on January 4th, 5th or 6th, and those manifests were turned over to the FBI,” he continued. “The FBI went through those manifests and every American that they identified … as a Trump supporter that was on those manifests was added to the FBI’s suspected domestic terrorist watchlist.”
  • Higgins told Logan that the efforts by the TSA and air marshals to track the movements of Trump supporters are “still happening” today

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Two FBI agents killed, three wounded in early morning raid in Florida

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two FBI agents were killed early on Tuesday and three others were wounded while trying to serve a search warrant at a Florida home, an encounter that turned into one of the federal law enforcement agency’s bloodiest in decades.

As a team of law enforcement officers tried to execute the court-ordered warrant involving violent crimes against children at the home in Sunrise, Florida, shots were fired at 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT), the FBI said in a statement.

The search warrant sought evidence in connection with suspected possession of child pornography, the FBI Agents Association added in a statement.

Two of the wounded agents were in stable condition at a hospital, while the third did not require hospitalization, the FBI said. The subject of the warrant, who was not identified, also died, it said.

The man being investigated had apparently barricaded himself inside an apartment complex and was found dead, the New York Times reported, citing unidentified officials. It was unclear how he died, the newspaper said.

The scene on Tuesday morning near the home in Sunrise, just west of Fort Lauderdale and about 30 miles (48 km) north of Miami, was swarming with emergency and law enforcement vehicles from the FBI and police in Sunrise and surrounding jurisdictions.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the incident and would likely address it later on Tuesday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray identified the dead agents as Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger and hailed them as heroes.

“Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger exemplified heroism today in defense of their country,” Wray said in a statement. “The FBI will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery.”

The shooting deaths, which remain under investigation, were among the bloodiest episodes for the FBI.

In 1994, two agents were shot dead along with a police detective at the Washington, D.C., police headquarters when a homicide suspect opened fire on them with an assault weapon, also wounding a third agent, according to the FBI’s website.

Another deadly encounter occurred in 1986, also in Florida, when two agents were killed and five others were wounded in a Miami shootout with two bank robbery suspects, the FBI said.

The last fatal shooting of an FBI agent on duty was on Nov. 19, 2008, which also unfolded during the execution of a warrant, the FBI said. Agent Samuel Hicks was shot and killed as he sought to execute a federal arrest warrant associated with a drug trafficking organization in Pittsburgh, it said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Mark Hosenball and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul, Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Man arrested in plot to bomb Oklahoma bank

Jerry Drake Varnell, is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters August 14, 2017. Oklahoma Department of Corrections/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – An Oklahoma man was arrested after what he thought was an attempt over the weekend to bomb an Oklahoma City bank building as part of an anti-government plot, U.S. prosecutors said on Monday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, on Saturday after an undercover agent posed as a co-conspirator and agreed to help him build what he believed was a 1,000-pound (454 kg) explosive.

Varnell had initially planned to bomb the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington in a manner similar to the 1995 explosion at a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, according to a complaint.

FBI agents arrested Varnell after he went as far as making a call early on Saturday morning to a mobile phone he believed would detonate a device in a van parked next to a BancFirst Corp building in downtown Oklahoma City, the complaint said.

“This arrest is the culmination of a long-term domestic terrorism investigation involving an undercover operation, during which Varnell had been monitored closely for months as the alleged bomb plot developed,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “The device was actually inert, and the public was not in danger.”

Varnell, of Sayre, Oklahoma, was charged with malicious attempted destruction of a building in interstate commerce. He is expected to make his first court appearance in federal court in Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon.

 

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Von Ahn)