FBI Once Tried to Entrap Pulse Shooter Into Terrorist Plot

FEATURING MAX BLUMENTHAL – The Justice Department has just released a very limited and heavily redacted transcript of the Orlando shooter’s 9-11 calls. Even though Orlando police said in the aftermath of the shooting that Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, Attorney General Loretta Lynch explained to reporters on Sunday talk shows that the names of specific groups he claimed to be acting for would be withheld to “to avoid re-victimizing those people that went through this horror.”

We do know that the FBI twice questioned Mateen to investigate suspicious statements he made, but cleared him. It has now emerged that the federal law enforcement agency tried to lure him into incriminating himself in some sort of illegal plot but that Mateen did not respond.

Read Max’s AlterNet article HERE.

Max Blumenthal, senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza.