Inside the Mind of a Lone Wolf Assassin

On April 26th, 31-year-old software engineer Cole Tomas Allen allegedly attempted to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. Despite having no known history of violence and recently being named “Teacher of the Year” by his tutoring program, Allen reportedly charged toward Secret Service agents armed with multiple weapons before being stopped.

In this episode of The Threat, we examine the psychology, history, and evolution of the lone wolf assassin in America. From John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln to John Hinckley Jr.’s attempt on Ronald Reagan, what drives seemingly isolated individuals to commit acts of political violence? Are these attacks ideological, personal, or fueled by a deeper obsession with fame, power, and notoriety?

Host Jonathan Schanzer is joined by Program on Extremism colleague Jeffrey Parsons, a former federal prosecutor and counterterrorism expert who spent two decades investigating terrorism and political violence in the United States and abroad, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Together, they discuss the warning signs of lone wolf terrorism, the rise in domestic political violence, possible foreign influence operations, and how law enforcement distinguishes between dangerous rhetoric and credible threats. They also explore what more can be done to prevent political violence before it turns deadly.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Jay Solomon. And I'm Hagar Shimali. And welcome to the Threat Podcast. Every week we'll analyze and discuss the most pressing, yet not always so visible, threats to global security and the movements and ideologies that fuel extremism and terrorism.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

We'll take listeners to the front lines of these battles, both at home and abroad, and we'll talk with the key players in law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy, and academia who are working to counter these threats.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Welcome to the Threat Podcast. I'm Jay Solomon.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

And I'm Hagar Shamali.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

On April 26th, a video game programmer, an engineering graduate from the prestigious California Institute of Technology attempted to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondence Dinner in Washington, D.C. Cole Thomas Allen is 31 years old and has absolutely zero history of violence. He was recently chosen by his tutoring program as its quote-unquote teacher of the year, and yet the Torrance, California resident attempted to ram through a phalanx of Secret Service agents with a shotgun, handgun, and an armory of knives to kill the president and some of his top aides. On this episode of The Threat, we're going to examine the nature and history of the lone wolf assassin and what it tells us about American society and national security. Cole Thomas Allen is hardly the first loner who grabbed headlines by seeking to assassinate a politician or American celebrity. John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan in 1981 to impress the childhood actress Jodie Foster. John Wolf Spooth killed President Lincoln in 1864 in an effort to reverse a civil war that had actually already ended. Are these lone wolves crazy? Are their motives always political? Or does their violence speak to the importance of celebrity in American society? Today we're speaking with our colleague at the program on extremism, Jeffrey Parsons, who spent two decades in the FBI fighting terrorism and political violence in the U.S. and abroad. This included tracking down and prosecuting the terrorists involved in the 2008 attack on Mumbai, India, which killed 175 people. Jeff, welcome to The Threat.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Well, thank you very much for having me. Look forward to the discussion.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Agar, nice to see you.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Great to be here always. Excited for this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Let's start off with Cole Thomas Allen. He appears on the surface to be sort of the classic lone wolf assassin. Doesn't really seem to have be part of some larger group, didn't seem to have a history of doing these types of attacks, or even that much, you know. There's a manifesto tied to him that said he was that kind of explained that he felt he had to stop President Trump in sort of religious terms as a Christian, so he needed to do it. But do you think it's accurate to describe him as sort of your classic lone wolf assassin, lone wolf terrorist? Is that is that the way you see it?

SPEAKER_03 3:15

There's not a technical definition for this because there's a broad range of people that don't these types of operations. Yeah, like a group of anybody part of a legend in some way.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Jeff, can you define for us the nature of a lone wolf terrorist or assassin? And are his or her motives necessarily political?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Yeah, so defining lone wolf is you know the topic of papers that have filled journals left and right. So um, but generally speaking, a lone wolf is somebody operating independent of a group that wants to conduct an attack on their own, and they've identified a grievance that concerns them that they want to address through violence in some way. And I think political is almost too broad of a term in this definition. Um, if you want to say political as far as Republican and Democrat, I don't think that is appropriate. But by definition, terrorism has a political goal and that they want to achieve some type of change in the current system. And so most Lone Wolf have some grievance they're trying to address, which could be considered political. In other words, they want to highlight a specific concern in the country or in the world that they want to bring attention to, they want to make a change politically among the leadership, or they just want notoriety themselves. They feel that by doing this attack, they will become famous in some way. So all those could be viewed as political in some way. It's just a matter of what that person's going for at the time.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Are there are there common motivators for these room loafs? And are there common traits? I've read some reports that say, you know, when you cut to the core of it, isn't really political in a lot of these cases at all. It's more just about them wanting to be famous or wanting to, you know, be known publicly, and maybe you know their lives are sort of going in bad directions. So going down in a kind of glaze, in a blaze of glory seems to be something that's pretty common to these to these attackers more than a disputative political ambition.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Yeah, I think notoriety is definitely a prime motivator for many of them. There's been numerous studies done on the you know the history of assassins, and I think notoriety definitely rises at the top as a primary motivator, but usually they also have some type of issue they're trying to address, which is you know, anyone that conducts violence usually has some grievance that is motivating them to take that next step. And they have viewed at that stage that violence is the best way to address that grievance. Um, but it is definitely a commonality that that is um uh something that they're looking for. The other thing you mentioned that is very interesting is the situation in their each of their lives, and that usually for assassins in particular, or people that attempt assassination, their life has taken a downward turn in some way, and they're in some type of downward spiral. So they may be very successful in life at one point, they may be very accomplished. In fact, most have higher education in some way, but at that part of their life, they've suffered some setbacks, things have not gone well for them, maybe the family situation has gone downhill, they've lost their job for no reason, and this you know kind of leads them into this course of action where they think this is the best way out.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

So, I mean, that makes it sound even harder to identify a lot of these folks. When you were in the FBI and in the in the FBI in general, how would you differentiate between somebody who then simply talks about violence and assassinations and someone whom you think might actually act?

SPEAKER_03 7:16

That is the million-dollar question every time we get one of these. Um and it is difficult to identify somebody that is actually going to take that last step and actually do something violent. I think it's important, first of all, to point out that people don't wake up, you know, generally speaking, and decide to do violence, right? It's not really programmed into us. There are definitely exceptions to that. There are people that want to see the world burn. But for these type of actors, it's a the end of a process that they've gone through. And that they have, like I said before, identified a grievance and then more importantly, identified an ideology, whatever that is in the broadest sense, that justifies violence as a way to achieve that aim. So they have to become comfortable with whatever it is that says violence is okay in this situation. If it's a terrorist, it might be the ISIS or Al-Qaeda ideology. If it's a right wing person, it might be um whatever you know, speakers they've listened to that have justified this. Same on the left wing. You know, both people have um ideologues that have spoken in favor of this and said, yes, violence is okay for you. And then they've taken that step. I think when you look at the law enforcement side, there are a lot of people that talk a lot. And that's where the challenge we have is how you sort through all people that are talking because there's a lot of grievances out there right now, and find the right person that's doing something. And usually before you do the violent act, you'll go through a series of preparation, and that's when you start doing more overt steps that can be identified. So, you know, once you stop talking and actually maybe go purchase a weapon, which by itself is not illegal, obviously, but is a step towards that. You start doing surveillance on the target, you start researching a specific thing, and once you've narrowed down the specific target that's addressed to that grievance and your ideology, then becomes more real. And then the last step is actually taking the step to do the attack itself. And unfortunately, that's usually where you catch them, is they're actually maybe have made an overt statement, they've made a final will and testament, you know, they maybe usually told somebody else about to do something. And those are the things you know that we hope to catch before they actually do something. Unfortunately, a lot of times in these situations, those are only obvious in hindsight. In other words, once we the act has taken place, then we do the investigation, see all the things that you think should have been obvious to see in hindsight, but in all the clutter that we have, it's hard to see those at that time.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Can you talk about a bit more being in the FBI like in this day and age? Like I guess all this tech and social media in some ways can help you in detecting a potential assassin or a terrorist by you know whatever they're doing online, but it also seems to prevent lots of challenges. Can you just, you know, particularly in the last couple of years, we had a piece at the program on the stream streamers last week on this organization, High E in Europe, which was recruiting totally through social media. But could you just add a bit more on the social media element of how you might try to track a lone wolf or a lone wolf terrorist?

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Sure, and that's a broad question. Generally speaking, the good news is in the current generation of people, they like to talk. And the people want to talk, they want to connect in some way. And so usually there's a thread out there in some way where they're throwing ideas out there, looking for a community they can associate with, looking for justification for the acts, and looking for encouragement in some way. So it might be Reddit, it might be Telegram, it might be Facebook, you know, TikTok comments, whatever else. Usually you can find something there where they've reached out and said some indication. It's not gonna be I'm going to kill so-and-so on this day, but it might be an indicator of what they're leaning towards. The problem, as you also saw technology, is everything is encrypted now. And there's a lot of communications out there. So, how do you go through and find all those statements and just a barrage of information that's out there? And then, you know, high for specifically, that was all done through Telegram, which aren't exactly cooperative with law enforcement legal process, and also is encrypted. So we can't see the communications. There are usually tells though, like so. For the high example, specifically, there was a telegram channel at one point, and there were commonalities and network you can build out. So hopefully that provides an insertion point for law enforcement to maybe engage with people to identify who might be involved and identify motivators, identify tradecraft, or other indicators you can kind of latch on to that might help you develop leads to find the actual attackers in some way. It becomes very problematic. And the biggest challenge we have is, like I said, the volume information that's out there. There's just so much out there. If they truly are a lone wolf, if there isn't a group out there directing them, it's hard to identify which of the myriad of comments out there online matter need to be followed up on versus which ones are just people talking and being angry about things.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I guess it's why, I mean, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the FBI has stated that the threat, the domestic terror threat emanating from the lone wolf is the greatest domestic terror threat that we face at the moment. And it makes me wonder a bit about right that vulnerability that that exists here, the extent to which foreign actors could take advantage of that. So what has been, can you talk a little bit about that? What's been the history of foreign involvement in US political assassinations? Um, you've written about alleged Russian ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, but are there other examples that you could talk about?

SPEAKER_03 12:55

There are. Unfortunately, foreign actors have sought to exploit grievances and social divides in the country for as long as we've been in the country, really. I think Iran might be the most active in this world right now. Um, in fact, just a couple months ago, Asif Merchant was convicted and sentenced in New York City. He was an individual that was trained by the IRGC, an Iranian terrorist group, I guess, and was sent to the United States for the purpose of assassinating the president or other government officials. And in this case, he actually, we said, fell for the FBI playbook. He started talking to undercovers, you know, if a playbook goes forth and we arrest him for that act. But Iran has a history, especially since 2010, of attempting to do actions in the United States, whether it's targeting dissidents, um, they actually tried to attack the Saudi ambassador in a suburb of DC. But they are really not scared as far as sending operatives here to do those attacks. Um, another weird one was back in the 1980s, a Chicago gang actually reached out to Libya hoping to collaborate to do attacks in the United States, um, hoping to get money and resources and training in exchange for doing Libya's um political interests in the United States. So there's definitely a history of that. We have not necessarily seen Russia or China go down that road as far as last year, you know, advocating a violent attack in the United States, but they definitely sought to um exploit social grievances to create more um distrust and discontent in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

I have a psychological question because you talked about the lone wolves. A lot of them want kind of recognition. Is that a is that a vulnerability, vulnerability on their side? Like looking back, do some of them do things before the attack because there is their their egos involved. They whether it's you, you know, they're doing stuff on online or there's other provocative actions that might give you inside the FBI a hint that something might be might be going down?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

I think so. Again, it's hard to find that proactively or preemptively. I think the biggest thing we've seen, both in lone wolves and also in terrorists, are seen to attacks, is somebody always knew something. Right? Usually a fan member or close friend knew that an attack was coming. They may not know the details of it, but usually they confided in somebody something's going to happen soon. And that's the challenge of getting that fan member speak up, you know, before it becomes a problem, so we can actually stop that. But every time we've done the review of these attacks, there was, you know, indicators out there that a fan member saw. And generally speaking, there's a change in that person's personality once they've taken that last step and they've gone from just ideology and grievance to actually making preparations and doing the actual attack itself. That somebody saw a change in that person and were concerned about it. I think the best example is the attack that just happened yesterday in uh, I think it was it uh um in California. You know, it was actually the mom of one of the attackers that called police saying, I've noticed a change in my son, you need to go find him right now. You know, unfortunately in that case it was too late. But the family members or close friends usually have know something's going on. And the biggest you know, help we have with law enforcement is them reaching out and talking to us so we can use the tools available to law enforcement to maybe stop that before it comes that late.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

So are families usually more helpful than one would think as far as you know, ahead trying to, I guess in some ways they're trying to save their kids or daughters or whatever, and they they're the ones who know notice the change the most.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Yeah, families are complicated. I think we all know that. So it's difficult to say how family would respond to that. Um, sometimes we as law enforcement hope that family realizes that the best way to maybe save their family member that's engaged in this act is to work with us so we can stop them and prevent something worse from happening. But you know, sometimes family try and take it or take care of themselves, keep it in the family and handle it themselves. That may work sometimes, it doesn't work all the time. But usually they're the best ones to identify those changes, to identify the behavior that is a concern because they're closest. They're gonna see those things that you know the internet and law enforcement methods won't see.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Why do you think, Jeff, that there's this increase? It feels as though there's an increase in domestic political violence in the United States. We've had three attempted assassinations of Trump, right? You have the CEO of the health insurance company. We're we're it and it's interesting to me because on one hand it feels like you're seeing more of it. Sometimes social media feels like it feeds into it a little bit as well. Maybe that, I mean, I could see on one hand how social media could help you identify potential attackers, and on the other, it feels like it call also uh, you know, nourishes them in a way or feeds help, you know, furthers a certain narrative or whatever and and um enables them in a way. But and sometimes I also say, but I don't know, political violence has also been part of American history. So it feels as though it's surging. Is that true? And if so, why? Why do you think?

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, I've not seen any statistics or a you know comprehensive study to determine how this current era compares to previous, you know, eras in the United States, but I think you hit it on the head, though. This has always been part of our culture, unfortunately. We've had many presidents assassinated, many attempts on them throughout our history as a country or other attacks. So unfortunately, that's where we are as a country. And it does seem right now there's a lot more. I think one trend you see when you look at these attackers is they pay attention to the previous attackers. So almost always they have looked at other attackers and growing motivations from those, you actually learn from those and maybe become accepting that that is a viable way to address whatever they're concerned with in the country. So um because there's more of those things to draw upon, you know, more attacks begets more tax in that way. I think one example for school shootings, you know, Columbine was a watershed moment for that. And many school shootings after that drew upon Columbine as a motivating factor and want to get into that community and felt okay taking that next step because Columbine happened. So we see, you know, in terrorism as well, attackers want to become the next one and do better at that. So they will draw upon the previous ISIS attack, the previous Al-Qaeda attack, and want to fall in that and become part of that community, and that's weigh in assassins as well. They will have looked at previous assassinations and want to fit into that culture and feel like they belong in some way in that culture. So, like you said, the more attacks we have, the more likely it is to have copycatch, for lack of a better word. You want to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Getting back to the international element of this, even if do you think there's a a significant increase, even if the Russians or the Chinese and the Iranians aren't sending in their people, that they're using social media to try to incite more violence because it's great to destabilize our society, and whether they're doing it, I don't know if you can do it subliminally, but they're certainly, you know, whether it's there's a lot of different networks in this country that are domestic, but they seem to be getting at least inspiration from overseas, and I could see, you know, some terrorists getting or some lone wolf getting excited by what he's reading or seeing, and it's pretty purposeful from the other side.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Yeah, I haven't seen examples of Russia or China actually using their troll farms to advocate for violence. But there's no doubt that they have, especially Russia and Iran, have been very active in fermenting discontent in the United States. So they'll have you know certain bots that will highlight certain TikTok threads or other you know, Reddit accounts, social media accounts to you know generate that uh we call violence formilie, you know, this you know, highlight the grievances and cause more social unrest in the United States. Now, from that, we get people that fall into isolation and read those grievances and want to do something. So the more people you kind of get into this unrest, the more people that get motivated because of some issue, the better chance one or two take that last step into a violent attack. So, in that way, yes, you know, foreign actors do cause problems because they keep these social divides more visible, more public, keep them in the front lines of the social media accounts. And that leads to maybe one or two people in the future going down that rabbit hole of violence. And you're ultimately taking that last step.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

What about, you know, you're you've mentioned Russia and China and Iran. But what about when it comes to terrorist groups? ISIS, the um, for example, you know, I remember in 2016 when you had the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, and the shooter was inspired by ISIS. And he wasn't the only one, right? We've seen others who've um who've been inspired by terrorist groups, or you they're seeing some kind of violence uh abroad. At that time, that time, by the way, 2016, you we had the ISIS had become a bigger force. They had uh land in in Syria and Iraq the size of the UK. Um, things were getting really heated. We we saw after October 7, uh FBI director at the time, Christopher Ray, went on the hill, said that there were flashing lights everywhere across the United States in terms of threats, and that the lone wolf was of big of utmost concern. So when it comes to that, how much are you seeing that as a threat? Um is this and and and also do terrorist groups see that as an opportunity that they might be looking to exploit?

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Yeah, I mean, that Al Qaeda actually had a magazine called Inspire, right? That the sole purpose was to you know spread the ideology in English language freely to the United States, hoping to give wannabe attackers in the United States or in the West in general the I guess ideological support to go do something violent and to give them the group to belong to. So they recognized this early on, and in their case, they recognized that you know in the early 2000s we detected terrorists by traveling overseas to make that connection. That was the weakness that we were exploiting to make sure we could stop these terrorist attacks. So they said, let's cut it out, let's uh make it simple for people, let's throw out you know, social media, let's throw out magazines so that people don't have to come to us. They have the authorization, they have the support to go do an attack on their own. And yeah, the inspired trend, you know, from 2012 onward to 2020 and even to this day is a concern. We still see Andro Alaki, who is an al-Qaeda ideologue based in Yemen, former American, his speeches and lectures still, you know, you know, permeate throughout that culture. And even though he has been dead for you know 15 years or so, he continues to have that influence. And we still see the Inspire magazine and ISIS had Dabik and Rumel, which are their versions of it. We'll still see those show up in ISIS Attackers Now. They'll still read those, even though they're 10 years old. That's still like the catalog that people want to go to to seek the encouragement, to seek the guidance on how to do something in the US. So it is a real problem because the more you cut out the communications to groups overseas and make it you know centralized here, there's less indicators of law enforcement to use to stop it.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

So it's also easy then. It's easy for these actors, for lone wolves, if they want to pursue something, it's easy for them to find the playbook uh in the United States to get a gun uh or use a car, for example, as a weapon. Is that your assessment?

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Absolutely. I mean, unfortunately, there's many ways to do an attack in the United States. And uh there's plenty of ways, and you know, they're all very illegal up until the very you know part where they actually try to kill somebody. But um, you know, because of the way the country is, it, you know, it's not that hard. I won't say how, it's not hard to get the right chemicals to make an explosive in the United States. It's not hard to you know find a weapon of some kind to uh go forth and do the attack. The hard part is how do you find the person that's saying the right things online, that's showing the right behaviors, and then how do we can insert some way to disrupt that before it becomes deadly?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

If you're in the FBI, like what is the best response to try to combat this lone wolf phenomenon, all this incitement that's coming online, whether it's domestic or foreign, you have a lot of capabilities that you didn't have probably even five years ago as far as using social media, but it's also like this network in Europe, this high E thing, it seems like it was set up really quickly. It's just you know, finding people who are who probably wouldn't be able to be easy to profile because they're you know, they might be doing attacks for Iran, but they're not supporters of the Islamic Republic, they're not Muslim in a lot of cases. But yeah, how how do you combat this threat when there's more tools to available to you, but also those tools are being used against you?

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Yeah, I like to say that law enforcement is great playing man-to-man, but we're not good at zoning. So, in other words, once we know where the threat is, we have a very good record at disrupting attack at that spot. So, like for the Hay A example, once you kind of know where to look, you know, once there's a one thing to grab onto, then you can start using those tools and you know where to zone in on and what techniques might be out there. Then you can start, you know, inserting sources, inserting undercovers, doing technical election, exploitation of metadata to identify the network and build that out. The hardest part is finding where to look. And the Lone Wolf says the biggest problem is if they do it right, there are no threads to pull on, or we don't know where it is because it's lost in all the you know the chaos that is the online world right now. The best tool law enforcement has is the community. Law enforcement is always best working with the community as a whole, with the trust of the community. And then they will tell us, hey, I see a threat here. And the biggest challenge we have is that people often think, well, that's not enough to work, that's not enough to act on. You know, it's just a small little change in behavior. So they're hesitant to reach out to the community or to law enforcement to give them that. Now, for the law enforcement side, that one little tip might be all we need, right? We might need to, you know, we might have a bunch of other pieces, but that one little tip from a family member or friend saying, hey, they just you know circled the Washington Monument for the fifth time in two days, okay, now we know what to work for, now we can work with that. And that's where the trust from the community really becomes important. That we need people to understand that we're gonna do the right thing, we're gonna work with them, we're gonna have everyone's best interest in heart, and public safety depends on that. So the further you decrease trust and law enforcement, the harder is for the community to provide those tips in some way. Um, but even then, with technology, like you said, it's hard to find everything. You know, data is constantly disappearing now. Um, encryption makes it almost impossible to pull up communications back and forth where it really is. Email is easy because email is unencrypted. We could pull emails and see what they're saying right away. These phone calls are easy because you could tap a phone and you could hear them talking. Now with encrypted communications, that's no longer an option. So even it is hard in that spot um with the way technology has progressed.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Do you do you think, Jeff, that then more education needs to be, that there needs to be more education for the public on the need on what to look for? You know, kind of like after 9-11. Remember after 9-11, it was like you see something, you say something. And everyone knew this, everyone, and I remember being in airports or train stations and there'd be random suitcases left and people would immediately know, like, I have to alert somebody on this. We were trained that way. Do you think that there's enough there to be that that's been done? And if not, I mean, how do you do it? Like, should there be a social media campaign? Is it the FBI and the police? Like, if I think to myself I'm seeing something, I'm not sure I would know who to reach out to. I don't know that I would Google the FBI headquarters of my state. Maybe I'd call the local police. You know, what would be the advice that you'd give on that?

SPEAKER_03 29:50

Yeah, I think, I mean, this is actually a good news story in that there are less attacks happening right now because, you know, law enforcement and the community was able to struck ISIS. You know, they're they're still around, but it's not like it used to be. So in 2016 or 2002 after 9-11, people are much more attuned to that because they knew the threats. We're always seeing it, so they're much more mindful of it. Now, I mean, it is good. We don't have the same terrorist threat overall environment that we used to, but it still is a threat. So I think it's still important for everyone to know that you know it hasn't gone away. There are still people that are seeking to do either, you know, assassinations of the president or other congressional leaders or political leaders in some way, or other terrorist attacks on behalf of ISIS or any of its affiliates. So it's just important to get that message out there that it's still there. And I would say it's not just limited to terrorism, you know, law enforcement relies on tips for everything. You know, if it's uh a missing person, if it's a kidnapping, somebody knew something out there that can help open things up. It's just a matter of always establishing that trust and keeping that door open so we can get those tips that we need.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

I'm curious, in the in the wake of the attempted assassination at the correspondence dinner, uh this profile of Cole um Thomas Allen that's come out a bit more. You know, he's he's a kind of a techie engineering uh guy, he's a teacher, he's uh um making video games, he's also pretty religious, he goes to church. Is there anything in retrospect that you think might have tipped someone off? Because you did have this uh manifesto, this travel team uh taking a train from California with his weapons all the way to the hotel, but uh it still seems like it would have been a needle in a haystack. But maybe I'm just curious now that the story's been out for a couple of weeks, is there anything that you think might have been able to tip people off? It it does seem like the security uh at the hotel is an issue, as in he you know checked in two days in advance with all of his weapons and was like case in the place. Maybe that should have been a better tip off. But yeah, I'm just really interested in in the retrospect of what's happened, if you saw anything.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Yeah, I didn't see any social online presence that would have been indicative. I didn't see him posting anything that I've heard about on Reddit or you know, Facebook or anything that would have been alarming. The manifesto is very interesting because he definitely took the time he wanted his message to get out at the end. The biggest indicator, I think, was the travel, you know, that actually left and you know, traveled halfway around all the way across the country to do this attack. So in this case, it would have been dependent on a family member to recognize that he is going, traveling for some reason, you know, which is a bit unusual considering his life situation. Maybe that would have been a tip. Um, best case, it would have been a family member saying, hey, you know, he hasn't been the best spot in his life. I'm worried about him. In a perfect world, that might have been a call to Metropolitan Police in DC or the Secret Service just to look off for him and maybe do an interview and maybe find it that way. But that is like a needle in a haystack at that spot. A lot of things have to work right to find that. Um he is a bit of an anomaly in that there wasn't the you know the the tail out there that we could have picked up on in this case. It is a sad thing that if you really if you're willing to die to do an attack, you can get pretty close to doing it. And if you do it right, if you don't say anything, if you don't leave you know the tails out there, it's really hard for law enforcement to stop that.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Do we track travel patterns internally like we do? You know, if someone's coming in from Afghanistan or Iran, like that's gonna be detected. But yeah, that's like a bit of an unusual travel pattern all the way from California to do we do we do surveillance on that or not?

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Not much you know what to look for, no. Um there's no, I mean the best example is the no-fly list. But there there's you know, there's a certain threshold that has to be reached to highlight someone as a threat. In other words, law enforcement and intelligence communities identified certain people that have raised the level that we can watch list them. And in those situations, you know, the trains and airplanes will know when those people under those names and dates of birth have booked travel, and then law enforcement is alerted to that. But again, it goes back to they have to be highlighted in some way. We have to know where to look, and then we can look for it. So in this case, had he been on the no fly list or had been, you know, look for that, we might have picked up that he was traveling. The you know, the right detective or secret agent or special agent might have, hey, we should look at this, where is he going and look for him to show up at the hotel? But again, there's several steps that are very hard. And we, you know, it's also important to highlight that at any one time the Secret Service has a handful, if not tens or twenties, of threats for the president. So it's not just one thing they're looking at, they're looking at could be 20, 30, 40 people that they're worried about in that geographic area that they're trying to pay attention to. So it's we always know about the ones that did something at the end, but there's another 19 or 20 they're looking at as well that they actually were able to disrupt or keep under control.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Huh. I mean, there's one test case we've written a lot about at the program on extremism is this young lady Cala Walsh. And I'm I'm interested talking to you as someone in the FBI, like how would you approach this case? Because on the one hand, she's a young woman she she actually engaged in violence to the point she went to prison, but just for a few months. But she's also you know, she's actively inciting violence online, calling for assassinations of Israeli officials, calling for you know uh the death of Americans in Iran. Like I'm curious, I'm just amazed, I find it's interesting case because this her path towards radicalization has been so public and yet no one seems to have been able to stop it. And I'm curious, as someone from the FBI is it just in our system it's so free that there's little you can do, or are there steps that we you think should have been taken earlier? Because now it almost looks too late.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah, I mean, this is a tough one, and unfortunately, the way I won't say unfortunately, but the way our our laws are written, the First Amendment is pretty powerful in this case, and that we there's only one example I could find to look back on this of where we prosecute an individual for incitement to violence for terrorism, and that was Ali Altamini, who was the ideologue that motivated the Virginia Paintball Network, going back to 2002-2003. Um, and then his case actually overthrown him three or four years ago. The Supreme Court overruled it and said, no, what he was doing to incite these individuals to travel to Pakistan was protecting the First Amendment. And so he's actually been released from prison because of that. So without an overt act in furtherance of, beyond just saying something, is very difficult to prosecute. Now for Kayla Walsh, I think the one thing to look at now is her involvement with designated terrorist groups, right? So I think she's actually more closely in the IRGC. And if she's doing anything to maybe put someone directly in touch with the IRGC to facilitate that travel, you know, she if someone reaches out to Kayla and asks for help and she provides that help, that could be something that could lead to a prosecution or at least, you know, closer develop that. If she's providing expert advice to the IRGC about targets in the United States, that could be something to look at. The problem with these things is you have to give the probable clause standard to start doing these more advanced techniques to find these steps that might be a violation of law. And right now, just speaking becomes very dangerous, or you know, it's hard to get that probable clause based on First Amendment alone. When we did, you know, warrants for either FISA warrants or criminal warrants, we'd always say we have to have First Amendment plus something. You know, the speech is great if there's another overact that you can throw on top of everything she's saying, and then it puts the speech in context. So for Kayla, hopefully they're looking at that, you know, that she's maybe providing something to IRGC, and if nothing else, she's one of those, a center of gravity, to use Noel Klauschwitz term, that might draw on other people. So by looking at her, you might find other people that are inclined to violence. In other words, her online network might draw in people that are of a like mindset that want to do something, and she could be like a lightning rod that you know, by looking at her, you find the next attacker in some way. So there's hopefully law enforcement is looking at that, you know, either to find the next bad person or to see you know what advice she's doing or to help unravel form networks. But it's difficult when it's only speech.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Even, I mean, on the issue of material support for terrorism, though, we live in this age where narrative warfare, information warfare is almost as important as kinetic warfare. She seems pretty clearly providing assistance to designated entities. Press TV is a designated entity and she's on it all the time, and she seems that seems to be material support, even if it's not, you know, a kinetic action. Is is am I off? Or do you think that's something that is seen as contravening US law, or is it something that should be?

SPEAKER_03 39:28

You know, I think I'm definitely not a lawyer, as all the press could work with have always reminded me consistently that I don't know the law, but in order to collect evidence. And I we have definitely, and I agree with this, that other countries use media to propagate their own propaganda and in furtherance of state interests, right? You know, China is a great example of this, Iran, Russia, you know, their media outlets are, let's be serious, arms of the state, right? They're not a free press. It's more propaganda than free press. And so by designating those as entities, you know, open up certain ways to prosecute them through FARA, otherwise, just have not seen us do it yet. We've designated the entities, um, but even then it's hard. I speak from previous experience, it's hard to get like a FISA warrant or criminal warrant based on that. The courts just aren't there yet without the more overt act that is more tangible. Put another way, just speaking on other outlets overseas really is not prosecutable. There's many Americans that have gone on to TAS or RT or you know any of the Chinese networks and spoken, and we're not going to prosecute for that. You need something behind the scenes to show they're doing it for a specific purpose. And that's the chicken egg thing, right? How do you get the probable cause to look for the you know the private communications, the private acts that put that public persona in perspective?

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Well, I find I find the Caliwals case infinitely interesting. And this this has been a great discussion. Hagar, do you have any issues, questions you want to close on?

SPEAKER_01 41:06

No, I mean, I guess the only thing I'd ask finally is that is there something you think that needs to be changed from the government side? You know, a certain policy or authority that they need or practice? I mean, you know, with something, I mean, within the realm of realistic, obviously, but what do you find? Is there something that frustrates you that you're like, no, we should have this ability, we should have this authority, you know, for the sake of our public safety and ensuring that uh foreign actors can't exploit this vulnerability here?

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Yeah, it's a great question that you know, we've talked about, you know, in the SWAT area and the FBI for years. And the fact is the FBI could stop every violent attack. It's just you don't want to give us the power to do that. So there's always this balance in America of how do you balance our civil liberties that are incredibly important versus stopping violence. And if you walk into the Hoover building, you know, and you walk in there, it says our mission is to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people. And those are always kind of in conflict in some way, and that we want to be sure we provide and support all the constitutional rights that we have, because that's very, very important to us, but also stop violence. So I don't know how you amend the current laws without becoming an authoritarian state. We don't want to give up what makes America great to stop violence. But we do want to stop violence. So, like I've said before, we play man-to-man very, very well. The biggest thing is really the cooperation of the American public. As long as we have the trust of the American people and they can provide us the tips where to look, we're usually pretty good at stopping at that point. And that's the biggest piece that I emphasize over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Hopefully these attacks will abate, but thank you so much for being on the threat. Really appreciate this discussion and Agar, great to see you.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah, likewise. This is a great discussion. Thanks so much, Chef.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

All right, thank you very much.