To understand the significance of this letter, let’s go back to Trump’s first address to Congress in February 2017. The new president made the striking claim quoted above: “According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.”
So in April of last year, I filed two FOIA requests. I asked for any records supporting the president’s claim before Congress, along with any records “relating to the nationality or country of origin of individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses”; correspondence between the Justice Department and the White House related to that data; and correspondence related to preparation for and reaction to the February 2017 joint address. When the department did not respond, I filed a lawsuit.
A number of weeks ago, the Justice Department and my lawyers—Larry Schwartztol and Justin Florence of Protect Democracy—agreed to simplify the remaining searches to facilitate resolution of the case. The offices of the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, legislative affairs, and public affairs would each conduct a search “for records containing data of (i) all individuals convicted of all terrorism-related offenses (domestic and international) between 2001 and the date of the initial search, or (ii) all individuals convicted of all domestic terrorism-related offenses between 2001 and the date of the initial search.” Presumably, if the Justice Department had provided the White House with data to support the president’s claims, the request would have gone through the department’s top brass. If there was some data “provided by the Department of Justice” to the White House showing that “the vast majority of individuals convicted [in all] terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11”—including domestic terrorism cases—“came here from outside of our country,” there would be some record of it either in the attorney general’s office or the deputy attorney general’s office.
Because what the President of the United States said before a joint session of Congress was not true. It wasn’t true about immigrants and terrorism. And neither was it true about the Justice Department.
It’s pretty clear this matters to not a single Trumper. But shouldn’t it? The President went before the Congress and the Nation and told a huge, Pants on Fire level lie, and blamed the DoJ for it. On what level is this remotely acceptable?
I saw no proof that he lied.
I only saw evidence that whatever data Trump had at the time, possibly verbally provided, could not be provided to the ridiculous requester.
According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country. - DJT
When most Americans think about a “terrorist” they think of a brown middle easterner. We probably need a new word for people who don’t fit that description. Probably something that’s not as scary sounding.
In February of this year, I received 57 pages of material from the National Security Division in response to the request—specifically, the portion of the lawsuit concerning communications within and originating from NSD. From the documents, Ellingsen and I were able to reconstruct a partial picture of the origins of the president’s spurious claim. To boil it down, NSD had provided data on international terrorism prosecutions only, not domestic ones. Both NSD and the FBI emphasized the limitations of this data. The Justice Department explicitly warned the White House that the data did not “include convictions related solely to domestic terrorism.” And the FBI noted that “database checks are limited in their ability to accurately identify a date/place of birth.”
In other words, having been advised that the dataset contained critical omissions, that data about naturalized citizens probably contained “gaps or errors,” and that the data dealt only with international terrorism cases—not domestic ones—the president and his administration nonetheless crafted the misleading statement that appeared in his first address to Congress. What’s more, in January of this year, the president again mischaracterized the data in a tweet promoting a report by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security:
Two critical paragraphs from the OP article are above.
The President and his administration were informed and warned but they ignored what information they were given and created an “alternative fact” aka LIE for his speech.
