Sen. Cornyn calling for report to be made public.
An FBI report concludes that FBI agents and other federal officials were so terrified about being labeled 'anti Muslim' that they allowed Army psychiatrist to move through the system and continue to be promoted, without anybody raising any red flags about his well known crazy Islamic fringe beliefs, 1200
WOAI news reports.
U.S. Rep Michael McCaul (R-Austin), who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, says he has been briefed on the FBI report, which is still classified.
"This shows you the length and breadth of the political correctness that is going on," McCaul told the Associated Press.
Hasan is charged with killing 13 people and wounding 32 during a shooting rampage at Ft. Hood in November of 2009. He is set to be court martialed next month and faces the death penalty if convicted.
Shortly after the incident, a disturbing pattern emerged. The Army had allowed Hasan to be assigned to several critical posts, including Water Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC, and had allowed him to be prompted to Major, despite the fact that the U.S. born Muslim was clearly sinking deeper into the abyss of Islamic radicalism.
McCaul told the AP that FBI agents who were investigating Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Islamic cleric in Yemen who was killed in a US drone strike last year, discovered e-mails that Hasan and al-Awlaki had exchanged, in which Hasan asked for details on how to carry out at terrorist attack, and asked whether the murder of innocent people was allowed if the killer were carrying out 'Jihad.'
But the report says when the FBI asked its agents in Washington to probe Hasan, they 'thought that interviewing American Muslims who visit extremist web sites to be a sensitive issue' and declined to pursue the matter.
"The American people need to know about this, and certainly the American men and women in uniform and their families need to know about this, so this terrible tragedy doesn't happen again," Sen. John Cornyn told 1200 WOAI news. He is calling on the FBI to release the unclassified portions of the report, something the Bureau has indicated it plans to do.
Parts of the report show simple old fashioned stupidity on the part of FBI agents. At one point, agents misinterpreted a designation the Army used for Hasan as a "comms officer," or a 'Commissioned Officer' as indicating he was a 'communications officer.' So they decided not to warn other officials at Walter Reed about Hasan's extremism, because they were afraid that as a 'communications officer' he would have access to any report.
Cornyn says this is disturbing, and he's afraid the feds are ready to sweep many of the most alarming accusations of incompetence on the part of law enforcement and Army officials under the rug.
"I don't think any potential embarrassment by any federal agency is just cause to sweep this under the rug," he said.
