That Time an Undercover FBI Agent Told One of the 'Draw Mohammed' Shooters to 'Tear Up Texas'http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/29/that-time-an-undercover-fbi-agent-told-oOne of the FBI's favorite tools for nabbing would-be terrorists is a sting: The bureau finds a mark, stokes his interest in carrying out some sort of attack, draws him into a plot, and then arrests him. Every time one of these busts hits the press, I wonder how long it will be before we learn about a perp who takes the FBI's encouragement to heart but decides to launch or join a separate plot that the government doesn't control.
I had that on my mind as I read 60 Minutes' report on the Garland, Texas, attack of May 2015. In that incident, two men tried to shoot up a draw-Mohammed contest; fortunately, local police prevented them from killing anyone. "Not only had the FBI been monitoring [one of the gunmen] for years," 60 Minutes recounts, but "there was an undercover agent right behind him when the first shots were fired."
The shooter in question, Elton Ibrahim Simpson, had been the target of a previous FBI operation, in which an informant recorded him talking about wanting to fight overseas for Islam. That wasn't enough to send Simpson to jail—he got three years' probation instead—but the discovery that his mosque had spies in it did drive him away from the temple. The alienated Simpson and his roommate then reached out to ISIS about carrying out some sort of attack at home.
But ISIS wasn't the only organization that Simpson was in touch with. "After the trial," his attorney told 60 Minutes, "we found out that they had had an undercover agent who had been texting with Simpson, less than three weeks before the attack, to him 'Tear up Texas.'" The report continues:
The man he's talking about was a special agent of the FBI, working undercover posing as an Islamic radical. The government sent attorney Dan Maynard 60 pages of declassified encrypted messages between the agent and Elton Simpson—and argued "Tear up Texas" was not an incitement. But Simpson's response was incriminating, referring to the attack against cartoonists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo: "bro, you don't have to say that..." He wrote "you know what happened in Paris... so that goes without saying. No need to be direct."
But it turns out the undercover agent did more than just communicate online with Elton Simpson. In an affidavit filed in another case the government disclosed that the FBI undercover agent had actually "traveled to Garland, Texas, and was present...at the event."...And this past November, Maynard was given another batch of documents by the government, revealing the biggest surprise of all. The undercover FBI agent was in a car directly behind Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi when they started shooting.
Was it incitement? Judge for yourself. From the affidavit:
![Image](https://d1jn4vzj53eli5.cloudfront.net/mc/jwalker/2017_03/affadavit.png?h=275&w=600)
The FBI wouldn't speak with 60 Minutes, aside from an emailed statement denying that its agents had advance knowledge of the Garland plot. So we don't know their answers to the questions the show says it would have liked to have asked: "Are these the only communications that you had with Simpson? Did you have more communications with Simpson? How is it that you ended up coming to Garland, Texas? Why are you even there?" That isn't the first time the FBI has declined to talk about the topic. The bureau refused to answer some questions on the subject from the Associated Press earlier this year—and when a Daily Beast reporter inquired about the "Tear up Texas" text last August, an FBI spokeswoman just hung up the phone.
In the best-case scenario, the text was just one irresponsible but ultimately uninfluential remark to a man who was already ready to shoot people. But that would still raise the question of just why exactly anyone thinks this sort of encouragement should be a part of any police investigation. In the meantime, it wasn't an undercover G-man who stopped the plot; it was the local cops in Garland, who were there because they realized that this was the sort of event someone might try to attack.
Records: Undercover FBI agent was at Garland, Texas, attackhttp://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2017/02/10/records-undercover-fbi-agent-near-garland-terror-attack/97740354/The Texas contest was held nearly four months after an attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in what extremists claim was retaliation for the publication of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad.
The fact that there was an FBI agent at the contest in Texas who was in contact with Simpson has drawn criticism from Kareem’s lawyer and the security guard’s lawyer. They say the government has not been forthcoming about the agent’s role in the plot and have questions why the agency didn’t break up the plot.
“We are convinced that there is much more to this story than the FBI has admitted ,” said Trenton Roberts, an attorney for security guard Bruce Joiner.
The FBI declined to comment on whether the agency believed beforehand that Simpson and Soofi would launch an attack and on Kareem’s claim that the agent’s presence wasn’t revealed to avoid embarrassment. The Garland Police Department also declined to comment.
The agent had been sitting in a vehicle outside the Garland convention center just as events wrapped up at the cartoon contest.
A dark sedan in front of the agent made an abrupt stop. As the agent drove around the car, two men with an Islamic State flag, wearing body armor and carrying military-style rifles, got out and opened fire.
The agent drove away and was later stopped by police. The two men were killed in a shootout with law enforcement assigned to guard the controversial event, and the security guard was shot in the leg.
The agent’s presence at the contest wasn’t publicly revealed until 15 months later and has raised questions about whether authorities could have done more to stop the attack.