ORLANDO, Fla. _ The chairman of a Senate homeland security committee on Tuesday called for an independent review of the FBI's investigations into the Pulse nightclub shooter and an assessment of the terrorism watch list criteria.
Federal authorities had no way to know that 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the subject of two FBI investigations in two years, purchased firearms after being plucked from the database, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wrote in the letter, made available to media Wednesday.
"If this information convinced the FBI to re-open its investigation of Mateen, law enforcement potentially could have uncovered information on social media or elsewhere of Mateen's radicalization," wrote Johnson, chairman of the homeland security and governmental affairs committee.
Johnson's public cry is the latest in his quest to gain more information about the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, following other letters he sent to Facebook and Mateen's employer, G4S Secure Solutions, seeking answers.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orange County Mayor Theresa Jacobs would not make themselves available Wednesday to comment. The DOJ also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Johnson addressed his four-page letter to Michael Horowitz, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice. It's not unprecedented to conduct retrospective studies, Johnson wrote, citing the Boston bombings and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man who tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Eve 2009 with explosives sewn into his underwear.
Johnson questioned whether the federal government could have done more to potentially prevent Mateen's attack on Pulse, where 49 people died and at least 53 were injured during a Latin-themed dance night.
The FBI knew of Mateen prior to the shooting. It investigated him for 10 months in 2013 after his colleagues at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, where Mateen worked as an armed security guard, reported him for articulating ties to terrorist groups.
During this investigation, authorities placed Mateen on the terrorist watch list and interviewed him twice. They removed him from the federal database after failing to substantiate the claims.
Mateen again came under the FBI's scrutiny in 2014 after a fellow mosque-goer reported to the agency that Mateen took an interest in radical Islamic lectures. This happened after Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who attended the same mosque, blew himself up in a terrorist attack in Syria. Mateen was not put back on the watch list during the second investigation, which also returned unsubstantiated claims.
Had Mateen remained on the list, federal authorities would have been notified when he tried to buy weapons, through a background check requested by the gun seller, Johnson wrote.
It may be necessary, he continued, to implement a "look back" provision that offers the same notifications for anyone who has been investigated by the FBI in the last five years when they buy firearms.
That's part of what Johnson wants the IG to determine.
Johnson's letter comes at a time when the City of the Orlando, the FBI and two dozen news agencies remain locked in a lawsuit over whether 911 calls and police recordings from the shooting are releasable under Florida's public records law. A judge has not yet ruled on the matter, or whether the case will proceed in federal or state court.
"Similarly, in its interactions with this Committee, although the FBI has provided some information, it has sought to limit my ability to conduct oversight by demanding that I only request information about the attack from the FBI," Johnson wrote.
