That’s right: the Russians.
I’m hardly a Putin fan, but at least he recognizes a threat to his country when he sees one. The Russkis were on top of the Tsarnaev brothers’ increasing radicalization years ago, while the FBI was still busy scratching “Islam” out of all its training manuals.
U.S. Rep. William Keating said Russian intelligence officials believe the Boston Marathon bombings could have been avoided if federal authorities had acted on their warnings about bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The Massachusetts Democrat was part of a congressional delegation that met Thursday with Russian security officials in Moscow. Keating told The Associated Press on Friday that Russian officials showed him a letter they sent to the FBI in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev had plans to join insurgents in Chechnya…
Keating said the letter contained a lot of details about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, including his birthday, telephone number, cellphone number, where he lived in Cambridge and information about his wife and child. He said it also referenced the possibility that Tsarnaev might be considering changing names.
The Russians also had information about his mother, including her Skype address, Keating said.
Keating told the AP that the Russians believed Tsarnaev wanted to go to Palestine and engage in terrorist activities, but was unable to master the language.
“That was the level of detail they were providing in this letter,” Keating said.
To put things in perspective, here’s a bit of the FBI’s concurrent investigation into the Tsarnaevs:
Thank you to Rep. Keating for proving there really is such a thing as an honest Democrat. Presumably his party will punish him suitably.