SUMMARY:Federal agents are investigating bomb scares targeting prominent Democrats, as well as CNN. Amna Nawaz reports on the political discourse that may have inspired it, as well as President Trump’s response. Hari Sreenivasan reports from New York. Judy Woodruff discusses with Juliette Kayyem who worked in the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, and Joseph Funk former Secret Service.
SUMMARY: Three more mail bombs were intercepted today: two in Delaware, addressed to former Vice President Joe Biden, and another sent to Robert De Niro’s New York City office. After President Trump blamed the "hateful" media for stoking national tensions, former CIA director John Brennan (himself a bomb target) shot back, criticizing the President's rhetoric as "fuel" for violence. Amna Nawaz reports.
SUMMARY: Authorities arrested a 56-year-old Florida resident in connection with a series of mail bombs sent to prominent Democratic politicians and public figures. Cesar Sayoc faces up to 48 years in prison on multiple federal charges. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump both hailed the arrest, promising Sayoc would be prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law.” Amna Nawaz reports.
SUMMARY: Now that a Florida man has been arrested and charged in the series of mail bombs over the past week, we turn to considering his motives. What do we know about the relationship between ideological extremism and violent behavior? And how does social media play in? Judy Woodruff talks with Mary McCord former acting assistant attorney general, and J.M. Berger author of "Extremism,” for analysis.
SUMMARY:On Saturday morning, a man opened fire during a naming ceremony at Tree of Life Congregation, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and killed 11 people while injuring six, including four police officers. Law enforcement took into custody a man they identified as Robert Bowers. Executive Editor David Shribman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette joins Hari Sreenivasan for more.
SUMMARY: Cesar Sayoc, who was arrested on Friday on suspicion of sending more than a dozen mail bombs to Democratic party leaders, traversed many lifestyles until he started engaging in politics in 2015. Trevor Aaronson of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting sifted public records and talked to people who knew Sayoc, and he tells Hari Sreenivasan what he found.
NOTE:I have made two changes from the original transcript to clarify which persona is talking.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: Jesse Curtis Morton begins work as a counterterrorism researcher at George Washington University this fall. But his path to the position was highly unconventional: until 2012, Morton was Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a Muslim extremist who founded a radical Islamist website. His decision to go undercover and assist in counterterrorism efforts while in prison changed his trajectory profoundly.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Across the country, students are heading back to school. As on many campuses, today is also the first day of class at George Washington University.
This summer, a think tank at the school made one of the most unique hires in academia.
The “NewsHour” has a broadcast exclusive interview with a man who was once convicted of terrorism-related charges, and is now a researcher on campus.
I caught up with Jesse Curtis Morton recently.
This is Jesse Curtis Morton. In 2010, he went by another name, Younus Abdullah Muhammad.
YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD: We will fight you and destroy you if we have to, but we prefer that you come home and pack it up. Stop killing our innocent men, women and children overseas.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Born in the U.S., he grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but Morton became a Muslim extremist. This was him on the streets of New York.
YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD: There will be no peace with Israel until Israel is in pieces.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Morton (aka Younus Abdulla Muhammad) also helped found Revolution Muslim, a Web site that the FBI says encouraged Muslims to support Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and other violent jihadi groups.
The Web site threatened violence against the creators of the Comedy Central show “South Park” for a 2010 cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed. In 2012, Morton was sentenced to more than 11-and-a-half years in jail for using the Internet to threaten bodily harm.
But here we are four years later. He's a free man with a decent-paying job at a George Washington University think tank in the nation's capital. Morton is out of jail early because he cooperated with authorities in the U.S. and overseas. He worked undercover to gather intelligence on those who still trusted the man they saw in those videos.
He helped train law enforcement to recognize people on the path he was on, and helped analyze the behavior of suspected terrorists with insights only someone like him could have.
You're on camera now. Your face is going to be out there. And you're going to be walking around a college campus, as someone who has been convicted of supporting al-Qaida.
JESSE CURTIS MORTON, George Washington University: Yes.
HARI SREENIVASAN: There's 10,000 sets of parents who might be a little concerned that someone with a target on their back might be walking around on the same campus as their students.
JESSE CURTIS MORTON: Well, there has been an extensive security plan put in place by a very competent security team at G.W. And we have assessed the risk with the law enforcement community, federal, local, and some state agencies. And there is very, very, very little risk at this point.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Getting to this point, Morton says, has been a long road through radicalization and then de-radicalization.
JESSE CURTIS MORTON:I came from a very tumultuous childhood, where there was very severe abuse. And when I reached out to my society and tried to get assistance to stop that abuse, the school, my family, and the society around me didn't prevent it. And so, at a very young age, I rejected American culture and the American way of life, so to say, and sought a new identity.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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