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New vegas silent sniper7/10/2023 ![]() In response to questions about the theory, Sandra Breault, an FBI spokesperson, said only: “The FBI Las Vegas office has the utmost confidence in our agents and analysts’ investigative techniques.” The CIA declined to comment.Įven as there appears to be no evidence supporting Higgins and Johnson’s theory, it is having alarming, real-world effects. The findings of the Las Vegas police investigation-in which the FBI was of assistance-directly contradict Higgins and Johnson’s theory. So far, however, nobody with any real standing has taken the document seriously, much less acknowledged having received it. ![]() Higgins claims a current FBI agent in his and Johnson’s circle-who he says had input on the document-“filed it as a formal report with the bureau.” ![]() (Yes, the same Rich Higgins who infamously got tossed off the NSC for writing a controversial memo warning that “Islamists,” “globalists” and the “deep state” together were trying to subvert Donald Trump’s presidency.) A month after the October shooting in Vegas, Johnson, Higgins and a handful of associates collaborated on a 51-page PowerPoint document based, according to its executive summary, on “open source information with tactical counter terrorism analysis, cyber intelligence, and digital data mining capabilities.” Higgins and Johnson told me they sent the document to contacts in the CIA and FBI, as well as to conservatives in Congress and the media. Others of his ilk then amplified the unsubstantiated Antifa-ISIS allegations on social media in what became a frothy concoction of phony tweets, Facebook posts and YouTube videos.īut weeks later, the theory took on a life of its own in an ad hoc “alternative” investigation spearheaded by my two lunch companions-Brad Johnson, a retired CIA officer, and Rich Higgins, a former Pentagon official who last year served for a few months in the White House as director of strategic planning for the National Security Council. “The whole thing has the hallmarks of being scripted by deep-state Democrats and their Islamic allies using mental-patient cutouts,” he said. “They found Antifa information in the room,” Jones claimed in one telecast. The idea sprang from the twisted, feverish mind of Infowars’ Alex Jones days after the Vegas attack. They belong to a small group of about a dozen members from the intelligence and special operations community pushing the theory that Paddock’s rampage was part of a coordinated anti-Trump plot involving the Islamic State and Antifa, or left-wing “anti-fascist” activists. My two lunch companions believe otherwise. According to a final report issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on August 3, Paddock’s motive was unclear, but he “acted alone” and had no links to “any hate group or any domestic or foreign terrorist organization.” He was referring to the worst mass shooting in American history, which happened last year in Las Vegas when Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded more than 800 others at an outdoor concert. “There’s substantial evidence that ISIS was involved in this,” the former NSC staffer told me, a few minutes after we had settled into our booth at the back of the restaurant. Otherwise, they were all business, and utterly serious. The two men who met me for lunch, a retired CIA agent and a former National Security Council official in the Trump administration, were wearing shorts and flip-flops. In the sweaty, waning days of August, I went to a Cheesecake Factory in the Virginia suburbs to learn about a conspiracy that would rock the FBI, if true. ![]() Keith Kloor is a writer in New York and adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.
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