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Thursday, May 16, 2013

WITSEC Loses 'Known Or Suspected Terrorists' And DOJ Didn't Authorize Disclosure For No-Fly List

By Susan Duclos

There are at least three major concerns stemming from the Interim Report on Department of Justice's Handling of Known or Suspected Terrorists Admitted Into the Federal Witness Security Program" also known as WITSEC.

(Report will be embedded below)

1.) The Witness Protection Program has known or suspected terrorists in it.

After its audit, the IG’s office reported “the Department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the WITSEC program,” among other “significant issues concerning national security.”

2.) They lost at least two of them but the investigation may not be complete so that number may  "evolve."

As of March 2013, the Justice Department was reviewing more than 18,000 Witness Protection Program case files to determine whether more known or suspected terrorists have been admitted to the program, the summary notes. As such, the number of terrorists lost or unaccounted for “may not be complete and may continue to evolve.”

3.) Justice Department did not authorize the information on these "known or suspected" terrorists to the appropriate agencies so they could be put on the No-Fly list.

The IG summary said that although the Marshals Service was giving known or suspected terrorists who participated in the WITSEC program and their dependents new names and identity documentation, the Justice Department “was not authorizing the disclosure to the Terrorist Screening Center,” which operates the terrorist watch list that helps provide information to the Transportation Security Administration’s No-Fly and Selectee lists. “Therefore it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions.”

 This has got to be an unwelcome revelation for the Obama administration which has had multiple major scandals hit at once with the Benghazi hearings and subsequent release of a chain of emails on the Benghazi talking points which contradict assertions made by the Obama administration, the AP Phone record scandal where the DOJ seized the phone records of reporters and the IRS scandal where it has been confirmed the IRS deliberately targeted conservatives groups and others.

Liberals and conservatives are already demanding the dismissal of Attorney General Eric Holder over the AP phone record scandal, so this level of incompetence won't go by unmentioned.

Full Wake up America coverage on Obama administration scandals can be found here.

Interim report embedded below: