Jeff Addicott - Director of the Warrior Defense Project at St. Mary’s Law School Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we had an arrest made by the FBI here
in Houston, a man with ties with ISIS. Evidently he
was harboring or was willing to harbor potential ISIS members
in his apartment. He was looking to get his hands
on explosive devices. He was planning some sort of a
terror attack, at least wanted to conduct some sort of
terror attack in particular military members and on other groups

(00:23):
and individuals and crowds here in Houston. He's been on
the radar from the FBI since twenty seventeen, seven long
years ago. Jeff Attica joins this director of the Warrior
Defense Project at Saint Mary's Law School. I think Jeff,
when people here he's been on the radar for seven years,
they're going, well, why the hell didn't you do something
about it seven years ago or six years ago or
five years ago? Why did it take this long? But

(00:46):
at the end of the day, this is like everything
else when it comes to law, right you have to
have probable cause.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
You do because we have the first amitment and you
have the right of this country. Excuse me to say
the most outletist things you can think of, and that's
what our forefathers had the wisdom to enshrine in our constitution.
So what he's been arrested for is violation of the
Material Support Act. That's where you solicit for violence, engage
in violence, conspire to engage in violence, or provide material

(01:14):
support to a known terrorist group. The second point is
this right wing extremist nonsense that we've heard for the
last four years. The greatest threat remains radical Islamic extremists.
We have folks in all fifty states that the FBI
are tracking, according to the FBI data, that are on
the terror watch lists. The vast majority of people on

(01:34):
that watch list are inspired by this concept that we
need to kill you. And oh, by the way, radical
Islamic extremists have killed more Muslims than Christians are jew
So it's not a religious thing from our perspective, it
is from their perspective. But we need to be on
our guard, particularly as we start to put the squeeze
of Iran, which needs to be done by this administration.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
You know, I have to wonder too. One of the
things I don't believe has been covered in this in
one of the the questions I'd be very curious to
know is how this guy got into the country. Is
he here legally? Is he here illegally? If he is
here illegally, was he allowed to stay here illegally for
seven years without being kicked out of the country. Nobody's
saying much of anything about the origins of where this

(02:15):
guy came.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
From, right, And you can assume, of course, because the
FBI of this current administration wants to cover up, They
want to camouflage anything that has to do with terrorism
unless it's right we for us, then they will plaster
that all over the newspapers. And I'll give you his mother,
his grandmother. Ay, you know, everything you can think of

(02:37):
in terms of information. So when you see a lack
of information, you can basically assume that all those things
are correct. And we don't. We have literally hundreds of
people on the terror watch lists from Iran, from Pakistan,
from countries that are known to haters for radical Islamic
extremism that are and watch lists that have come into
this country and we don't even know where they are.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
You know, I think they're a fair amount of people
who probably wonder, well, why why would somebody want to
do a terrorist attack in Houston? But you take a
look at the infrastructure on Houston, Texas, and the refineries
and the natural gas plants and all the other things.
We're pretty ripe target for a terrorist, don't you think.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, there's no doubt about In fact, this is not
the first arrest in Houston. We've had several arrests over
the years since nine to eleven in Houston and San
Antonio of people for the violation of the Material Support Act.
I thank goodness, the FBI has, you know, the wisdom
of the skills to attract individuals until they commit a crime.
So then go in and make the arrest. But I'd

(03:37):
rather stop them before they get to the airport than
after they get to the airport.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
What does they tell you, by the way, that that
this guy was arrested when he was Does that mean
in your mind that the FBI thought an attack was imminent?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, we don't have all the information, but we know
that they have enough evidence to charge it with the
Material Support Act, which was a law passed by Congress
in the nineteen nineties. So you know that good as
he was, and you know, we just need to be
constantly vigilant. We've seen a you know, a downplay in
the number of terror attacks since President Trump destroyed ISIS

(04:11):
back in eighteen twenty nineteen. But they will re emerge,
and they're inspired by these type of world evins to
go out and commit burder So, I think we're in
for a for a resurgence, at least in the short term,
and I'm particularly concerned. You know, what's their rallying cry, Well,
we drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, we drove the
Americans out of Afghanistan. They are reconstituted. So you reconstituting

(04:35):
in Afghanistan. You have two threats, well, the low wolf
extremists that are inspired and the people that actually from
those areas come into this country as we saw at
nine to eleven to commit a major terror attack.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
All right, Jeff Attictt. Always good to hear from you.
Thank you, sir. Appreciated Director of the Warrior Defense Project
at Saint Mary's Law School, Jeff Atticutt