Although NBC News is a card-carrying member of the Regime Media in good standing, from time to time they will attempt to commit random acts of journalism- more reliably so than their Regime counterparts. Case in point, their reporting on the latest developments regarding the foiled ISIS-K Election Day attack.
Here is the brief in its entirety as seen on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, October 16th, 2024:
LESTER HOLT: New details tonight about the Afghan suspect arrested in the U.S. for an alleged terror plot on Election Day. Tom Winter is here. Tom, what do officials know about this?
TOM WINTER: Well, Lester, an Afghan man arrested by the FBI here in the U.S. last week was plotting an Election Day attack directed by ISIS-K, the ISIS branch based in Afghanistan, according to two U.S. officials. Nasir Tawhedi was allegedly going to commit a mass shooting. He has yet to enter a plea. This is significant because most would-be attackers over the past ten years have been self-radicalized so-called lone wolves. Now the same group behind the attack that killed 130 near Moscow is believed to be responsible for planning an attack on our Election Day, officials say. The U.S. has been successful in identifying recent terror plots including an ISIS-inspired plot against a Taylor Swift concert this summer. Lester.
HOLT: All right, Tom Winter. Thanks.
More details beyond the brief per NBC News:
Tawhedi had worked as a security guard for the CIA in Afghanistan, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News last week. A month after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, he arrived in the U.S. in September 2021 on a special immigrant visa, court documents said.
Tawhedi had passed two rounds of vetting — as every Afghan resettled in the U.S. undergoes a rigorous screening and vetting process regardless of which agency they previously worked with — and no derogatory information was detected, a senior administration official familiar with the details previously told NBC News.
Tawhedi’s mother, who lives in Afghanistan, is believed to be an ISIS sympathizer, two U.S. officials said.
There does, though, appear to be some conflict with the reporting on Tawhedi’s vetting. Perhaps this explains the rest of the media’s reluctancy to cover the story. Reports of an unvetted Afghan national conspiring with ISIS-K (the same people behind the horrific Abbey Gate attack that left 13 service members dead and maimed many others) would be catastrophic for the Regime.
Per Fox News Senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich:
The Biden-Harris administration now admits that an Afghan national accused of plotting an election day terror attack did not undergo certain vetting they previously claimed he passed. Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was never vetted or approved by the State Department for special immigrant (SIV) status, despite officials from other agencies claiming that he cleared that stringent process.
Additionally, sources familiar with the investigation tell FOX that Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was not well known to the US government when the administration facilitated his departure to the U.S., despite his security role with the CIA in Afghanistan. FOX has learned Tawhedi was employed as a local guard outside the base perimeter and he would not have been among the most thoroughly vetted U.S. partners.
The news upends claims officials made last week that Tawhedi was vetted three times: 1) to work for the CIA in Afghanistan 2) to come to the U.S. on DHS humanitarian parole during the withdrawal, and 3) when he was approved for special immigrant (SIV) status after arriving in the U.S.
Officials now acknowledge Tawhedi was never vetted or approved for special immigrant (SIV) status, a thorough State Department process which can take years to complete. The State Department has maintained all along it had no role in Tawhedi’s refugee status, despite what a DHS case agent told investigators -- leading to its inaccurate mention in the DOJ criminal complaint.
NBC deserves credit for reporting the story, which the rest of the Regime outlets avoided altogether. But the details as reported by Heinrich are terrifying, and merit broader coverage.
As is the case with many stories not reported over the course of the last three and half years, the easiest standard to apply remains “what of Trump?” What if a dangerous terrorist were allowed into the country unvetted (or at least with conflicting reports of vetting) under the Trump Administration? The question is NOT whether or not it would be covered, but rather, how many A-block minutes would the story garner and over how many days, especially three weeks from a presidential election?
You may find, dear reader, that there is a (D)ifference as to how such things are covered.
P.S: Per the great Sultan Knish, the failed border deal may would have legalized this potential ISIS-K terrorist, and many others:
Operation Allies Welcome brought huge numbers of Afghans here were allowed to go to the airport by the Taliban
— Daniel Greenfield - "Hang Together or Separately" (@Sultanknish) October 16, 2024
The Biden Harris administration refuses to deport them and keeps trying to legalize them
The so-called bipartisan immigration deal would have legalized all the Afghans https://t.co/YydPTEXBkV
