At Monday morning’s FBI press conference, U.S. attorney Lee Bentley said they’re in the process of determining whether anyone else was involved in the Orlando shooting with Omar Mateen.
While no arrests have yet been made in connection to the shooting, Congressman Chris Stewart told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning that he’ll “be shocked if there weren’t others involve with this.”
“We’re going to learn so much over the next few days, and we’ve learned quite a lot already. I mean, I can say that this individual didn’t wake up on Friday morning and radicalize himself in 24 hours. It’s a much longer process than that,” the Utah Republican told Hewitt. “Speaking of myself, I’ll be shocked if there weren’t others involve with this. I’ll be even more surprised if there weren’t some people around him that weren’t, to some level, aware of his intentions and could have warned us.”
Stewart, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said he didn’t want to blame the FBI (even though the Bureau had him twice) because “they have an enormous challenge” in monitoring the hundreds of people out there who are like Mateen.
“And once again, what type of communications did he have with these individuals and perhaps others overseas? There’s a lot to learn. Now the core of your question is you know, are we good enough at this? And the answer is obviously not,” he said.
