and we have breaking news on an alleged
plot by an isis operative here in the
u.s to assassinate former president
george w bush it's part of an ongoing
and long-running investigation there is
no threat to the former president i
understand
joining me now nbc news justice
correspondent pete williams and frank
fig lucy former fbi assistant director
and msnbc national security analyst
pete forbes first reported on this what
do we know
well andrea it's quite clear now from
reading the court documents in this case
that there never really was any threat
to the president this is certainly a
person who wanted to try to do harm to
the president but never had the
capability to do anything and it's quite
clear that the fbi initially got
interested in him because he was trying
to smuggle people into the u.s for money
there's no suggestion when the fbi began
to to pay attention to him that he was
trying to smuggle terrorists in here he
just wanted to smuggle in people who
were not otherwise legally able to enter
the country from iraq to make money
his name is shihab ahmed shihab shihab
and according to court documents he is
from iraq he entered the u.s in
september 20
and there's some indication that he
himself committed visa fraud when he
entered the country but that's when the
fbi began to have two undercover
operatives talk to him
constantly record conversations with him
when he discussed his idea about
bringing people in here to make money
and then as the conversations went along
at one point he begins to talk about his
connections to isis he says that he
drove trucks and vehicles around iraq
that had explosives in them that were
used to attack americans whether that's
true or not there's no suggestion in the
court documents that's his claim
and then as the months went by he said
he wanted to bring in four or five or
maybe six iraqis who would be willing to
join him in a plot to assassinate the
former president
at one point in february of last year
one of the undercover operatives
picked up a shihab down at the airport
and they went and actually drove past
the bush compound and according to court
documents shihab made a video of that
with his cell phone but the court
documents say shahab never actually sent
the video anywhere because he was afraid
that it would be intercepted by law
enforcement and that's pretty much it
andrea so there's no suggestion that any
of the people he wanted to get here to
do this were ever smuggled into the u.s
no suggestion that he had any firearms
or capability to do this on his own it's
just an idea that he had in his head but
he never did any much with it
nonetheless he has been arrested he is
in custody he'll be appearing in court
this afternoon where he lives in
columbus ohio and he'll face these
charges andrea
and thanks to you pete uh frankfurt lucy
of course the former president has you
know full secret service protection
at all times and the fbi was all over
this right
they were but there's some notable
takeaways here andrea first we clearly
have not seen the last of isis or isis
related bad actors out there in fact
some of the names this guy was throwing
around if he indeed had affiliation with
them are known players um in the bath
party or known former associates of
saddam hussein so they're they're out
there secondly there is a connection to
the border here in the sense that um he
was planning at least to get through
people through the border with mexico to
do bad things here um there's even some
reporting here that he may have or at
least bragged about possibly having
smuggled somebody from hezbollah in
through the border and then lastly
there's clearly use of encrypted
messaging here or social media
encryption specifically whatsapp and it
shows both the challenges and the
successes of federal law enforcement in
overcoming the threat so they're using
an encrypted app repeatedly but the fbi
gets around it thankfully by inserting
informants into this once they get word
of this plot but my point is what if
they hadn't gotten around the encryption
what if this was still continuing and
surveillance turned into actual planning
plotting acquisition of material and we
the fbi could not get around the
encryption so it's a constant battle
against technology
indeed and pete
in the hearing today is it likely that
they will try to hold this this man
oh absolutely exactly
yes he'll have an initial appearance
this is a this is a i think it'll be a
criminal complaint not an indictment so
he won't be baking any plea today but
you can bet that the government will
seek to have him held as a danger
thanks so much to pete and of course to
frankfurt lucy to both of you for that
breaking news
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you