So what do we know so far regarding this planned attack, and what do we know about the suspect?

Yeah, so as you mentioned, it's an 18-year-old Somali man who, as you mentioned in the introduction, there's tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 Somalis who live in the Twin Cities area.

I was a first office FBI agent there decades ago, so I have a little bit of familiarity there.

What we know thus far is that it was an FBI undercover operation where the FBI undercover officer agent officer, sometimes involving task force officers, with an extensive conversation, texting back and forth with the subject, and eventually had sufficient evidence to take to the U.S. Attorney's Office that we heard from earlier to say, yes, there is sufficient evidence to charge this young man with the plot to kill 30 to 50 to 60 people at the Mall of America, as you mentioned, one of the largest malls in the U.S., and non-Muslims, of course.

So that's the gist of it.

One of the key questions that will be addressed is, was there entrapment? In other words, did the FBI put in the mind of this person, this young man, that he should do this, as opposed to, was he predisposed to committing this act, and the FBI simply helped facilitate the overacts and furtherance of this plot?

I mean, how do

we deal with this? Yeah, it's a great question because it's something that we're looking for a solution that I don't, I'm not sure exists.

So what do we know so far regarding this planned attack, and what do we know about the suspect?

Yeah.

So as you mentioned, it's an 18-year-old Somali man who, as, as you mentioned in the introduction, uh, there's tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 Somalis who, uh, live in the Twin Cities area.

I was a first office FBI agent there decades ago, uh, so I have a little bit of familiarity there.

Um, and what we know thus far is that wa- it was an F- FBI undercover operation where the F- FBI undercover agent, officer, uh, w- with sometimes involving task force officers, uh, with an, uh, extensive conversation, texting back and forth with the subject and eventually had sufficient evidence to take to the US Attorney's office that we heard from earlier to say, "Yes, there is sufficient evidence to charge this young man with the, the, the plot to kill 30 to 50, 60 people at the Mall of America," the, as you mentioned, one of the largest malls in the US, and non-Muslims, of course.

And so that's the, the gist of it.

One of the key questions that will be addressed is was there entrapment? In other words-

I mean, how do we, h- how do we deal with this?

What do you make of that drop?

Yeah, that is just terrific, Pamela.

And the idea of the passengers and the crew who are able to intercede and prevent the co-pilot from from crashing the plane is just remarkable and miraculous, I would say.

I'm sure your viewers of a certain age recall the Egypt Air 990 flight from JFK to Cairo that took off Halloween night, I believe it was, 1999.

And the co-pilot put the plane into a nosedive very similar to that.

And the pilot was able, who just stepped out to the lab, was able to get back in and get the yoke and said, pull with me, pull with me to try to get the aircraft.

And they did get it up several thousand feet.

their

What's your anticipation in terms of now TSA workers are getting paid and services will return to what percentage of normal?

Yeah.

Good, good morning and good, good questions.

Um, I, I think we are going to be looking at a new normal that may very possibly involve, uh, more privatized security operations at airports.

Uh, we are-- I think it's a possibly a strategic inflection point, if you will, because of the frustration over Congress not funding TSA, resulting in these resignations.

Over five hundred, almost five hundred and fifty TSA officers have resigned since this shutdown began.

Uh, and then there's also, of course, the, uh, the number of people who've called out sick, thirty-five hundred over the weekend, uh, each day, resulting in these long lines.

I imagine there s- might be some national security concerns considering this is the front line at the airport.

the same ICE tactics that they saw on TV or if they are from some of these cities where they've seen it in action, only now in a place like the airport where, let's face it, you're a captive audience

audienceRight.

Good, good questions, Audie, and, and those, uh, people that you interviewed, uh, you know, spot on in terms of what is the mission of those ICE officers at the airport, and at least in my 31 years in government and in leadership positions at TSA and the FBI, the question always became, you know, are, what are we trying to do? What, what are the CONOPS, the concept of operations, and are they smart goals? So are they specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely? Are they smart? And I wonder if these ICE, uh, officers were, were interviewed, would, what would they say their job is to do other than they've been told to go there? They're clearly not helping out at the TSA security checkpoints, which is good, because they're not trained to do that, uh, but it doesn't seem like that's...

They're, they are helping facilitate the movement of the people in a, in an eff- effective, efficient way, and I...

It seems like that's what the president was saying that's what they're there for, to help get these lines down and help TSA.

So what Homan had said was, "Look, sometimes you need someone to stand at an exit," and maybe that should be an ICE agent who has some security experience versus a TSA agent who theoretically can run the X-ray machine.

Well, and, and that's right, and I, I agree with that.

Look, TSA at almost 435 airports, uh, around the country, and in some of those airports, TSA officers are assigned to be at the exit lanes where people go out of the secure area.

I- from your vantage point, listening to what you heard from Jesse, is there any discernible way that ICE agents could help try and make the process a little easier at the nation's airports?

Well, I think there's a couple things that could be done.

One is, for example, in the 435 or so airports where TSA does the screening and things, many of those airports have exit lanes for when you go out of the secure area, when you're leaving the airport, that are staffed by TSOs, Transportation Security Officers.

So if ICE agents were assigned there as a supplement, they could relieve the TSOs from those responsibilities to get to the checkpoint to try to offset in a minimal way the high call-out rates that, that you showed earlier.

So that's, that's one thing with the, the queue management, the line management.

Perhaps, um, the one thing I think they could actually do, uh, uh, be a visible deterrent for a putative terrorist who might wanna think that they can take advantage of this situation and walk into any terminal in the country, you know, there in Atlanta or wherever, and to take out some automatic weapons and just start firing, um, at the lines.

The, so it's, it's a security risk 'cause they're, it's a soft target.

Would, uh, would their skill set be any different than that of the ICE agents?

Um, so do they have the confidence that they're meeting their threshold?

Yeah, I think that's a great point, Audie, because a number of the cases have been dismissed or reduced to, to misdemeanor charges or e- just a fine, a, a penalty as opposed to any criminal charges.

And so I think that's indicative of where the country is with the US Attorney's offices, um, which are obviously administration, um, part of the administration, not finding sufficient, uh, either resources or cause to, to move forward with the criminal prosecutions.

They're, they're not priority... pri- high-priority cases.

And so you have that balance between individuals exercising their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech versus the government's concern over somebody impeding their investigation.

It's hard to, uh, see how somebody following, uh, an officer, uh, who's driving away, uh, how, how that is impeding their investigation.

So i- it's, it's one of those case-by-case a- assessments that comes down to what's the final outcome? And I think the precedence here is that most of these cases will not result in a successful prosecution, uh, for the government.

Is that the actual goal?

How helpful is the general public in cases like this? And do investigators weed out the sincere attempts from the, the wild goose chases?

Mm-hmm.

The, the general public, by definition, does not have any inside information, if you will, so they, that is of no help typically.

Uh, that being said, it just takes one accurate tip, somebody who does have a basis of knowledge, somebody who knows what's happened, either because they are involved and w- whatever may reason, they, they've had a change of heart, or they know the person who is involved because they haven't shown up for work in the last two and a half weeks, or fill in the blank why they know.

So y- they, the FBI and the local authorities take every lead seriously.

They do a triage where they can say, "Okay, this is more likely than this one," and so they prioritize those and will fully run down all aspects of any lead that seems credible, uh, that is possible to lead to further information.

And, and it may be that one lead that doesn't solve the case, but in conjunction with other leads, tips that come in, allows the investigators to piece together the, the, the parts of the puzzle to say, "Aha, okay, here we've narrowed it down to X number of people," like, just like w- with the backpack and, and the ski mask and, and everything, probably Walmart, and so there's great cooperation with Walmart, and they've got great security cameras in the stores for, for theft pre- prevention things.

So I mean, one of the most famous kidnappings, uh-

What's going on? Can this be helpful, or does this show that they're kind of behind on this investigation?

Well, I think it shows a lot of things, Audie.

One is that the person who was planned planned well in terms of concealing their identity and making sure that the presumably his but the person's face is not visible aware presumably that there are a number of security cameras around the area although not in the building where the shooting actually took place also indicates at least a familiarity or perhaps gaining greater familiarity with the neighborhood to make sure perhaps about exits, how he could escape, get away safely, which makes a question, was there a getaway vehicle in the area that this person got into, in which case there should be some license plate readers that would be able to help identify.

So it indicates a level of planning and preparation and anticipation of being able to get in and get out after the shooting.

A number of other things have been considered that obviously the FBI and local police, state police Rhode Island, they released certain details, but presumably are not releasing all the details that they have.

And I think as others have mentioned, once identified, they'll be able to locate and apprehend him fairly quickly.

How would you help people understand what's going on here? Because unlike other kinds of shootings where sometimes it might end in the death of the suspect, this person is still at large.

Yeah, I think that's the concern, Audie, is that this person is out there and it raises a number of questions.

So tell me a little bit about what this shutdown could actually mean for air travelers, because frankly, I didn't know the government ever did this outside of big like weather problems.

Right, Audie.

So part of the challenge, obviously, for the air traffic controllers and the TSA frontline workforce that the travelers, two million plus travelers encounter every day, are not being paid for a record, as you mentioned, going on 36, 37 days.

And so people who need that income are sometimes looking for other ways to supplement so they can pay their childcare or buy their groceries, whatever it may be.

And so what's happening with Secretary Duffy Department of Transportation, which of course oversees the FAA, is announcing this reduction of 10 percent in terms of the air traffic that will be allowed to take off every day on land and so that's clearly meaning a significant impact especially when you're talking about the 40 largest airports in the country So given that, there still may be TSA workers who are on the job, and of course they will be, even though they're not getting paid.

Is this going to have lasting effects on the system?

I think that's an intriguing question, Audrey.

And I think it's something that we'll have to wait and see with these significant reductions already.

So, um, John Pistole joining us as well, the assumption is then that a rifle would be... would have been disassembled in that backpack and brought up, if that is in fact the killer.

Yeah.

That's right, Anderson.

And the whole idea is what can the FBI do to establish that rifle that was found to the shooter in this case, based on whatever forensic evidence that they have gleaned from that.

They have a palm print.

Okay, that's...

But what do you compare a palm print to? It's not like fingerprints for a driver's license or passports or things like that.

... identify this person.

From what you heard from the briefings before and what you just heard from that eyewitness, who's a bit of a hero himself for quickly, uh, calling 911, if you were on the scene, wh- what are your major questions now that you've heard some pieces of the evidence come forward?

Well, sure, John.

And, and the key that has been addressed is, what was his motive? Was it because of some illness, whether physical stemming from COVID-19, or is...

there was some type of mental illness that drove him to conduct that attack, if you will? And then, the question was, did he kill himself? Was it suicide by cop where he wanted to be killed after doing some damage? What message and what motive, uh, was he sending by conducting that shooting and ending his life either by himself or the, the officer who's, who was, was shot also? So, those are some of the questions.

And any time there's an active shooter, when it... especially when it's near a university campus, uh, such as where... you know, I was a president of a university 10 years after FBI and TSA, and there's a, there's a crisis response plan for each university, just as there are for government agencies.

And so, we're trying to distinguish between Emory, the university with, what, 15, 16,000 students between undergrad and graduate students, and then the CDC campus, and, uh, what are the crisis response protocols and how do they de-conflict if, if there is something where it goes across boundaries, if you will, physical boundaries? So, those are some of the things that they'd be looking at and trying to discern, and then get to the key questions about, was he acting alone? Apparently he was, based on everything that's known so far.

And then the other point, which I think people always need to be looking at, uh, was this some type of triggering device or, or triggering event where copycats or others who may be have similar grievances see this as a time to indicate, "Now the, now is the time to act, so I'm gonna use this, and this will be my springboard for saying, 'Okay, the time has come.

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