Why the FBI Won’t Release Omar Mateen’s Full Conversations With Police

With the U.S. Senate poised to vote on at least four bills related to the Islamist attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch discussed the issue with NBC’s Chuck Todd during Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press.

She first quickly updated the FBI’s investigation into the shooting of more than 100 people, of which 49 died. Lynch said investigators are “talking to everyone who had any kind of contact with [mass murder Omar Mateen].”

“It’s too early to say right now [if Mateen’s wife will be charged for her involvement]. We’re not making any predictions or announcements about additional charges,” she said. “We have focused on learning as much as we can about the killer’s motivations, about his actions, about his thoughts in the days and weeks and even months leading up to this attack.”

But don’t expect to hear everything about those motivations.

Lynch said the FBI will release Monday a partial transcript of Mateen’s calls with the Orlando Police Department’s negotiating team. She said it would be partial because the Obama administration’s “Combating Violent Extremism” agenda.

“What we’re not going to do is further proclaim this individual’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups and further his propaganda,” she said. “We will hear him talk about some of those things, but we’re not going to hear him make his ascertains of allegiance and that. This will not be audio. This will be a printed transcript. But it will begin to capture the back and forth between him and the negotiators.”

And now there’s growing evidence the FBI dropped the ball once again in the years leading up to the Orlando attack. According to the Treasure Coast Palm, the local newspaper in Mateen’s home town of Port St. Lucie, he was investigated in 2013 after making “terroristic threats” to local law enforcement:

A deputy at the courthouse mentioned the Middle East to Mateen, who reacted by threatening the deputy, said Sheriff Ken Mascara, who attended the Wednesday night meeting at the community’s Island Club.

“Omar became very agitated and made a comment that he could have al-Qaida kill my employee and his family,” Mascara said Wednesday. “If that wasn’t bad enough, he followed it up with very disturbing comments about women and followed it up with very disturbing comments about Jews and then went on to say that the Fort Hood shooter was justified in his actions.”

The FBI launched an investigation into Mateen after Sheriff’s Office officials reported the incident to the agency. As part of its investigation, the FBI examined Mateen’s travel history, phone records, acquaintances and even planted a confidential informant in the courthouse to “lure Omar into some kind of act and Omar did not bite,” Mascara said. The FBI concluded Mateen was not a threat after that, Mascara said.