The House Homeland Security Committee wants to look at the FBI's handling of a 2014 inquiry of a suspected terrorist bomber now facing charges stemming from explosions in New York City and New Jersey, Politico reported.
The committee's chairman, Texas GOP Rep. Mike McCaul, is concerned about the FBI's lack of followup action against people who later carry out terrorist attacks, including Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Orlando nightclub attack Omar Mateen, according to Politico.
The FBI acknowledged Tuesday two years ago it carried out an "assessment" of Ahmad Rahami after his father accused Rahami of being a terrorist. The probe was closed without charges.
Rahami was arrested Monday in connection with Saturday's bombings, one of which injured 29 people.
"It's a concern," McCaul said, per Politico. "We will be analyzing this case in New York in terms of how that case was handled. . . . The FBI has to play by the rules and the Constitution, and you can't just detain people for no reason."
"One of the recommendations that we looked at with the Boston report was keeping these investigations open for a longer period of time . . . because once that closes, we lose a lot of ability to say stop travel, or have secondary screening if they travel in and out of the country," McCaul added, saying in some cases suspects could be stopped from buying a weapon, Politico reported.
"In this case, we know [Rahami] traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan on three occasions. So, keeping those cases open longer I think would be a good tool."
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