Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Disgraced Former FBI Official Can’t Understand Why Kash Patel Called Boulder Attack Terrorism

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Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe criticized FBI Director Kash Patel Sunday during a CNN appearance, claiming Patel prematurely described an incident in Boulder, Colorado, as terrorism.

Patel posted on X that the FBI was investigating a “targeted terror attack” in Boulder after Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly used Molotov cocktails and a jury-rigged flamethrower when he attacked an event supporting hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas that killed over 1,200 people in Israel. McCabe said that local officials, who he claimed had “better information,” had not called it terrorism.

“They don’t have a clear idea that they’re willing to communicate to the rest of the world yet of even exactly what happened, who was there, how they were attacked with fire, and what the purpose or the motive of that attack might have been,” McCabe told CNN host Jessica Dean. “So he was very, very clear to say that they’re not drawing any conclusions about terrorism or anything else at this point. They’re trying to figure out who they have in custody and what that person might have done and who he — who he was trying to hurt with that action.”

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“So it’s hard to imagine that the FBI has more or better information at this point to kind of rush out with the conclusion within, like, ten minutes after we all started hearing about this that it‘s a targeted act of terror,” McCabe continued. “It may very well be, but most of the time you try to be very careful about attaching that label to an attack until you have solid evidence that indicates a motive that would qualify as terrorism, like an act intended to intimidate a population or to change the impact — change the direction of government, that sort of thing. Those are all parts of the terrorism statute. So I think we go with what we’re hearing from the folks who are closest to the event at this point, and they do have a lot of work to do, but they seem to be on top of it.”

Video posted on X at 6:02 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time showed the alleged attacker shouting “End Zionists” and “Palestine is free!” Fox News National Correspondent Bill Melugin reported in a post on X that Soliman was in the United States illegally, having entered on a non-immigrant visa in August 2022 and overstaying.

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyam also criticized Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino for calling the attack terrorism, accusing them of getting “way ahead” of local agencies.

“I’m going to be quite direct here. The FBI director and deputy director got way ahead of where the local police were. The language that the FBI used in their tweets included words like ‘violence,’ ‘targeted terrorism’ and ‘violent.’ They got ahead of where the local police knew where the investigation was,” Kayyam said. “I know — I want to just make it clear here. This could have been an anti-Semitic attack, which is terrifying, in particular for people in the community. We don’t know that because the Boulder Police officer, at least according to the Boulder Police officer, they’re not sure if the people injured were people at the the Jewish rally, the Jewish gathering. Now, maybe others in organizations know that. We know ADL and other organizations have been out on this. Maybe they have more evidence.”

“But one of the reasons why, you know, Andrew and I are careful in situations like this is because lots of people are saying lots of things,” Kayyam continued. “But when the Boulder police chief comes out and says, ‘We don’t have two plus two equaling four yet,’ in other words, it’s this obviously an anti-Semitic attack, and the victims were obviously part of that group, therefore we‘re not calling it terrorism, it adds a lot of — it’s not — it‘s not good for the community. It’s not good for the potentially targeted community. It makes law enforcement look disorganized, and it makes the FBI look so juvenile.”

McCabe was fired as deputy director of the FBI in 2018 following an inspector general’s report that accused him of lying about leaks to the media, but the firing was reversed in 2021 following a legal settlement after former President Joe Biden took office.