Hillary Clinton’s Connection to Orlando Shooter Omar Mateen-Reported as Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
In the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting that left 50 dead, accusations have been made that Hillary Clinton stopped an FBI investigation that could have prevented it.
The Truth:
Claims that Hillary Clinton stopped an investigation into Omar Mateen because it “unfairly singled out Muslims” are unfounded.
Shortly after Omar Mateen killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando before police killed him, accusations and conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s role in allegedly stopping an FBI investigation began to fly online.
First of all, Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state did not overlap with FBI investigations into Omar Mateen. Clinton’s last day in office was in January 2013, and the FBI didn’t initiate its investigation into Omar Mateen until May 2013.
FBI Director James Comey has said that Omar Mateen was investigated for 10 months in 2013 and again in 2014 after the bureau received tips about him:
…We first became of him in May of 2013. He was working as a contract security guard at a local courthouse, and he made some statements that were inflammatory and contradictory that concerned his coworkers about terrorism. First he claimed family connections to al Qaeda. He also said he was a member of Hezbollah, which is a Shia terrorist organization that is a bitter enemy of ISIL.
Comey said Omar Mateen was tailed and interviewed twice over the course of a 10-month investigation, and that he said he only made the comments because his coworkers were teasing him about his Muslim faith.
Then, in 2014, the FBI initiated a second investigation after it was revealed that Omar Mateen worshiped at the same mosque as a Florida man who blew himself up as part of an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and that the FBI’s investigation turned up “no ties of consequence” between the two men.
Neither of those FBI investigations of Omar Mateen overlapped with Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, and there’s been no indication by Comey that these investigations were stopped early because of concerns about religious profiling.
Additional rumors that Hillary Clinton stopped an FBI investigation into the Fort Piece, Florida, mosque where both Omar Mateen and the Syrian suicide bomber worshiped.
There haven’t been any official documents or records produced to support that claim, however. And FBI Director James Comey has indicated that Omar Mateen was radicalized online — not at a mosque in Fort Piece anyway.
Considering that Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state did not overlap with two FBI investigations into Omar Mateen, and that there’s no evidence that Mateen was radicalized at the mosque in Fort Pierce or that Hillary personally stopped an investigation there, we’re reporting this rumor as “fiction.”