Osama bin Laden

Administration Backs Off Tale Of Osama Bin Laden Using Wife As Human Shield

Ryan J. Reilly | May 3, 2011, 9:45AM

It was a fitting end for the America's most wanted man. As President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan told it, a cowardly Osama bin Laden used his own wife as a human shield in his final moments. Except that apparently wasn't what happened at all.

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Terrorism

Obama Administration Turns Focus To Homegrown Terrorism

Justin Elliott | June 1, 2010, 3:20PM

Nidal Hasan and Faisal Shahzad

The White House last week declared a new focus on the threat of homegrown terrorism, warning that "several recent incidences of violent extremists in the United States who are committed to fighting here and abroad have underscored the threat to the United States and our interests posed by individuals radicalized at home."

That language is from the Obama Administration's new National Security Strategy, a document (.pdf) that comes out every few years (the last was in 2006) and serves as a broad statement of policy. The document continues: "Our best defenses against this threat are well informed and equipped families, local communities, and institutions."

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Times Square Bomb

Ex-ATF Agent: Shahzad 'Was Not The Valedictorian Of The Bomb School'

Justin Elliott | May 11, 2010, 8:34AM

A timer clock used on the failed Times Square bomb and Faisal Shahzad.

With top Obama Administration officials now saying that alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was trained in Pakistan, the natural next question is: what kind of terrorist training results in what was by all accounts an extremely crude bomb that not only failed to go off, but also included 250 pounds of nonexplosive fertilizer?

TPMmuckraker put the question to explosives expert James Cavanaugh, who recently retired after more than three decades with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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Barack Obama

Obama First Briefed On Attempted Bomb At 10:50 Saturday Night

Rachel Slajda | May 4, 2010, 6:50PM

John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, briefs President Obama on the attempted Times Square car bombing in the Oval Office on May 3, 2010

President Obama was first briefed on the attempted Times Square bombing -- which was discovered about 6:30 p.m. Saturday -- at 10:50 that night, according to a White House official.

Administration officials, who today detailed the president's involvement in the attempted attack over the past few days, said White House officials, National Security Staff and the NYPD were in touch before the president was notified.

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Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

The Obama-GOP Miranda Showdown: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong

Justin Elliott | February 10, 2010, 11:12AM

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), and Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan (inset)

On close scrutiny, this week's intense debate over Miranda rights for Umar Abdulmutallab -- culminating in GOP calls for a top Obama aide to resign -- largely falls apart.

The key point of dispute -- whether four Republican leaders should have assumed that the Christmas bombing suspect had been Mirandized after a phone call from Obama aide John Brennan, in which the GOPers were told that Abdulmutallab was in FBI custody -- is moot in light of the facts of the case.

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John Brennan

Obama Admin On Al Qaeda: Don't Panic!

Justin Elliott | February 9, 2010, 9:17AM

Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan

Ramping up the push-back against GOP criticism of the handling of the attempted Christmas bombing suspect, a top Obama aide argues in a new op-ed that America's "system of justice" is fully capable of dealing with terrorists.

Writing in USA Today, Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan calls, essentially, for the United States to calm down.

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Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

Top Republicans Don't Dispute They Were Told Xmas Bomber Was Held By FBI

Justin Elliott | February 8, 2010, 4:02PM

National Security Adviser John Brennan with (clockwise from top left) Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

There's a key point in danger of being lost in all the he-said-he-said froth over what Congressional Republicans were told in the hours after the failed Christmas attack: none of the GOP leaders disputes that an Obama aide informed them that suspect Umar Abdulmutallab was being held in FBI custody.

The real dispute is over what flows from that fact. John Brennan, Obama's national security adviser, said on Meet The Press Sunday that he called four Republicans -- Sens. Mitch McConnell and Kit Bond and Reps. John Boehner and Pete Hoekstra -- the night of the attempted Christmas attack.

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Guantanamo

False 'Recidivism' Meme Lives On In Obama Admin Letter, ABC Report

Justin Elliott | February 3, 2010, 5:54PM

President Obama and John Brennan, deputy national security adviser

The Obama Administration has adopted the flawed rhetoric of "recidivism" to discuss former Guantanamo detainees who are now said to be engaged in violence, according to a new ABC report, which uses the same problematic language.

The item by ABC's Jake Tapper, titled "Brennan: All Transferred Detainees Who Returned to Terrorism Were Released by Bush, No Recidivism for Those Released by Obama," broke the news of a letter from national security adviser John Brennan to Nancy Pelosi that states:

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