The plot thickens, via Fox News:
A $28,500 deposit was made to Syed Farook’s bank account from WebBank.com on or about Nov.18, some two weeks before he and his wife Tashfeen Malik carried out the San Bernardino massacre, a source close to the investigation told Fox News Monday. Investigators are exploring whether the transaction was a loan taken out by Farook, who with his wife killed 14 and wounded 21 when they opened fire at a holiday lunch. He earned $53,000 a year with the county as an environmental health inspector. Investigators are also exploring the possibility that a subsequent cash withdrawal was used to reimburse Enrique Marquez, the man who bought the two AR-15 semiautomatic rifles used in the San Bernardino shootings...
The deposit came via Utah-based WebBank.com, which describes itself as “a leading provider of national consumer and commercial private-label and bank card financing programs” on a nationwide basis. On or about Nov.20, Fox News is told Farook converted $10,000 to cash, and withdrew the money at a Union Bank branch in San Bernardino. Afterwards, in the days before the shooting, there were at least three transfers of $5,000 that appear to be to Farook’s mother. The loan and large cash withdrawal were described to Fox News by the source as “significant evidence of pre-meditation,” and further undercut the premise that an argument at the Christmas party on Dec. 2 led to the shooting.
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Was it a loan, or could it have been an infusion of funds from a third party who was aware of Farook and Malik's intentions? Officials believe some of the money may have gone to the man who allegedly acted as a straw purchaser of the semiautomatic rifles used in the assault, but the three tranches of money transfers to Farook's mother are very interesting. She's pleaded ignorance ever since the massacre occurred, claiming that she had absolutely no idea what her son and daughter-in-law were up to -- including building a dozen or more pipe bombs, some of which were reportedly intended to cut down first responders arriving at the scene of the shooting. The three of them lived under the same roof, along with the couple's infant. The series of payments casts further doubt on her story, as does this development:
FBI agents found an empty GoPro package, shooting targets and tools inside a car belonging to the mother of San Bernardino mass shooter Syed Farook, Daily Mail Online can reveal. Authorities have repeatedly denied rumors that Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, strapped recording devices to their body armor as they stormed the Inland Regional Center, slaughtering 14 people and wounding 21. However Daily Mail Online has a discovered that an empty GoPro box was one of dozens of items seized from a black Lexus IS300 in the wake of last Wednesday's massacre. Documents confirm the car was insured by Farook's 62-year-old mother Rafia, who lived in the same home in Redlands, California, where he and Malik built pipe bombs and stored thousands of rounds of ammunition.
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That doesn't necessarily prove complicity, but the circumstantial case that Rafia Farook must have at least known something appears to be mounting. And then there's, well, this. As for the "premise that an argument at [Syed Farook's office] Christmas party may have led to the shooting," does anybody in the world still believe that story? He and his wife returned to the scene with body armor, a massive supply of ammunition, and pre-made bombs. It's blindingly obvious that this was a planned terrorist act, a case bolstered by new evidence that the couple's radicalization wasn't especially recent:
The couple who carried out the deadly attack that killed 14 people here last week had long been radicalized and had been practicing at a target range days before their murder spree, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday...“As the investigation has progressed, we have learned and believe that both subjects were radicalized and have been for quite some time,” David Bowdich, the F.B.I. assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles field office, said at a news conference here. The authorities said they now had evidence that there was extensive planning for the attack...Investigators say they have learned through interviews with people who knew Mr. Farook for several years that he had militant views before he met Ms. Malik online and married her in Saudi Arabia. “At first it seemed very black and white to us that he changed radically when he met her,” said one of the officials who declined to be identified because of the continuing investigation. “But it’s become clear that he was that way before he met her.”
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That would undercut the theory that Malik was the driving force behind the attack, who pulled all the strings, starting with radicalizing the man who helped her enter the US. I'll leave you with the editors of the left-leaning Los Angeles Times admonishing Democrats over their 'ban gun ownership for people on the no-fly list' politicking. In his Sunday night speech, President Obama said he couldn't think of a single reason why anyone on the government's no-fly list should be allowed to purchase guns (Farook and Malik were not on "any list of potentially radicalized people," according to CNN). One wonders if Obama ever taught his students about due process as a constitutional law lecturer:
One problem is that the people on the no-fly list (as well as the broader terror watch list from which it is drawn) have not been convicted of doing anything wrong. They are merely suspected of having terror connections. And the United States doesn't generally punish or penalize people unless and until they have been charged and convicted of a crime. In this case, the government would be infringing on a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution — and yes, like it or not, the right to buy a gun is a constitutional right according to the U.S. Supreme Court. How certain is it that the people on the two lists are dangerous? Well, we don't really know, because the no-fly-list and the broader watch list are government secrets. People are not notified when they are put on, nor why, and they usually don't discover they have been branded suspected terrorists until they try to travel somewhere. But serious flaws in the list have been identified. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the government over the no-fly list, the two lists include thousands of names that have been added in error, as well as the names of family members of suspected terrorists. The no-fly list has also been used to deny boarding passes to people who only share a name with a suspected terrorist. Former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) was famously questioned at airports in 2004 because a terror suspect had used the alias "T. Kennedy." It took the senator's office three weeks to get his name cleared.
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What other constitutionally-guaranteed rights would Democrats favor stripping from American citizens whose names appear on a secret list that's allegedly rife with errors -- without recourse or due process?
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