Federal Air Marshals Diverted From Sensitive Flights To Follow January 6 Suspects, Officials Say
According to a group representing air marshals, the Department of Homeland Security under Biden has been following people who flew into Washington, D.C., in January 2021, for years, even if they didn’t go to Capitol Hill and weren’t charged with any crime.
According to reports, air marshals have been pulled from sensitive missions in order to track down potential conservatives. This suggests that not only has a law-enforcement agency become politicized but also that those without any political involvement may have been put at risk. This finding coincides with the recent revelation that the FBI allowed an apparent child abuser to go free in order to pursue cases relating the January 6th.
Five days after protests at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by Rep. Bennie Thomson (D-MS), and then-Rep. John Katko, (R-NY), wrote to David Pekoske (head of Transportation Security Administration), to request that the agency “disrupt travel of terrorists that just attacked the U.S. Government’s seat,” citing online chatter as evidence they could be al-Qaeda style bombers.
The TSA soon began to do just that. This was discovered by an almost comical incident in which a TSA air marshal had to supervise another TSA air marshal during a time when his wife was in Washington, D.C.
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David Londo, Sonya LaBosco and the executive director and president of the Air Marshal National Council (an association that represents air marshals) wrote to House Leaders in January 2023 to say that innocent Americans are being placed on watchlists.
The pair wrote: “We recently became aware that the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Air Marshal Service are incorrectly classifying innocent Americans on internal TSA/FAMS watchlists and databases as Domestic Terrorists.” Most of these classifications are made without any investigation, or even follow-up.
FAMS said in one instance, that because the wife was an air marshal in D.C. but did not go to the Capitol on the 6th of January — they began following her flights. As she usually traveled with her husband, an air marshal had to be assigned to fly in a plane and monitor another air marshal. The letter stated that “you can imagine the scene”, when the husband was required to introduce himself to an air marshal following him and explain to them, as was required, that his weapon was on board.
The letter stated that the air marshal assigned to the flight told the husband he had been “originally planned for a high risk international mission,” however, that mission was not carried out because he was watching the wife of his colleague.
The letter stated that the husband could see on the TSA computer system his wife’s classification as “Domestic Terrorist” and that she was still classified in this way two years later despite the fact she had never been arrested, or even questioned, about the Capitol Protest, in which she didn’t participate.
The wife is not alone. “We have heard many similar stories about people being assigned to monitor those that TSA/FAMS classified as domestic terrorists due to their presence in D.C. around January 6th,” the letter continued.
Kirstyn Nimela, a 5’6” lesbian charged with misdemeanors, said during sentencing, “I’ve also been red-flagged at the airport and I have extra security, while other passengers stare as if I am a terrorist.” Other passengers have come up to tell me – I have video of it all – that undercover police were following and watching me. They even peeked into the ladies’ bathroom while I was there. This is humiliating and totally unnecessary.
The Air Marshal National Council reported that TSA repurposed its domestic surveillance program, “Quiet Skies”, to track people who were even weakly connected to the events of January 6. FAMS, the Federal Aviation Administration, initially kept the program secret, not only from the public, but also from other government agencies. The program allows air marshals flag and track people who may be “unknown or partly known terrorists,” who “are not under investigation by any organization and are not listed in the Terrorist Screening Data Base.”
In a letter sent to the TSA it stated that FAMS Director Tirrell Stephenson had “gone all-in” on Quiet Skies. This allows it to track people purportedly connected to January 6, even if it has no reason to believe they would blow up an airplane.
The Council stated that the nation was at risk from actual terrorism, because not only were FAMS following the January 6 people but also hundreds of officers were deployed on the southern border in order to help illegal immigrants instead of enforcing law by air.
In October, Pekoske received a letter from the Council stating that “there will be more FAMs performing humanitarian duties at the border on a daily basis than there will be American airmen protecting Americans.”
Rep. Pete Sessions is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, and Federal Workforce. He wrote in June 2023, “The deployments had been previously halted due to a DHS Office of Inspector General Investigation to determine if the deployments are legal.” Since caring for migrants does not fall under their job description. He wrote that “despite this, the Biden Administration resumed the practice because the Administration is unable to control our Southwest border.”
LaBosco said to The Daily Wire there had been major security incidents aboard flights, such as when a passenger held a razor blade against another passenger’s throat. There was no air marshal present “because we were at the border or were following J6 people.” “
The Daily Wire did not receive a response from the TSA. The agency responded to an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee with a few words.
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