Jim Comey has used what has thus far been an infallible PR tactic since he started as FBI Director. He invites a bunch of handpicked journalists to lunch and eats them alive with his charisma, after which they dutifully report stuff that makes no sense.
In the latest incarnation, on the day after he made two unconvincing pleas for back-doors-called-front-doors to two Senate committees, hinting all the time of big threats over the Fourth, a bunch of journalists then reported that FBI had arrested some people.
Mr. Comey would not say what the plots entailed or how many people had been arrested, but he said the plotters were among more than 10 people with ties to the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — who had been arrested across the country in the past month.
Meanwhile, more skeptical types like Dan Froomkin and Adam Johnson started reviewing FBI public announcements and even asking questions, only to have FBI respond, trust us. Froomkin found only one — yet another guy entrapped by the FBI — that looked like Comey’s claimed arrest.
I will have more to say about Comey’s discussion of terrorist arrestees who remain secret. I think they may in fact exist — indeed, I think it quite likely that FBI has already started using the enhanced material support sentences from the ironically named “USA Freedom Act” as leverage to get dopes on Twitter to turn informants into ISIS.
But the FBI has what should be a serious problem. It has been more than 3 days since July 4, since these purported arrests, well over 72 hours, the time period under which federal defendants should be presented and charged. And we’ve seen virtually no arrestees.
Where is the body? Or rather, the multiple bodies Comey insists exist?
Is the FBI subjecting these 10 guys to extended interrogations without telling the press or (potentially) even the local public defenders office so as to be able to extend the already extended “public safety” gutting of Miranda the FBI has been enacting of late? Have these defendants been denied presentment?
Where are the bodies, Comey?