Speaker 1: Hey, Alphabet Boys listeners, this is Trevor Aronson. I'm here
Speaker 1: to tell you about a new series from me and
Speaker 1: Western Sound, Pulse the Untold Story. It's an eight episode
Speaker 1: investigation of the Pulse night club shooting that will leave
Speaker 1: you wondering if anything you've heard about this case is true.
Speaker 1: The series is available exclusively on Audible. In a gay
Speaker 1: night club in Orlando on June twelfth, twenty sixteen, Omar
Speaker 1: Matin murdered forty nine people in wounded fifty three others.
Speaker 1: The attack was the deadliest act of violence against the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ plus community in US history, and the deadliest terrorist
Speaker 1: attack in the United States since nine to eleven. But
Speaker 1: there's a story you haven't heard. The FBI had a
Speaker 1: secret history with the shooter and his father. To obscure
Speaker 1: that history, the FBI pushed a false story that the
Speaker 1: media dutifully carried, that the attacker was a secretly gay
Speaker 1: Islamist extremist who had chosen to target Pulse and plan
Speaker 1: the attack for weeks. In Pulse the Untold Story, I
Speaker 1: uncover the volatile relationship between the shooter and his father
Speaker 1: and how their troubled interactions with the FBI lead to
Speaker 1: one disturbing question. Could the FBI have prevented the massacre?
Speaker 1: You're about to hear the first episode. To listen to
Speaker 1: all eight episodes, search for Pulse the Untold Story on
Speaker 1: the Audible app or go to audible dot com slash
Speaker 1: Pulse the Untold Story. Start listening today when you sign
Speaker 1: up for a free thirty day trial. Here's episode one.
Speaker 1: On June twelfth, twenty sixteen, Omar Matine calls nine to
Speaker 1: one one and speaks with an operator Emerson.
Speaker 2: I want this is DOCTA. Line's very recorded.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 4: What's that I'm working out of?
Speaker 2: Stood in there?
Speaker 4: I want to let you know I'm in Orlando.
Speaker 5: Then I did the shooting.
Speaker 2: What's your name?
Speaker 4: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Adakhadaddy of
Speaker 4: the Islamic State.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's your name.
Speaker 4: I've pledge my allegiance to Abu Baker al Daha. Daddy
Speaker 4: has to do law on behad of the Islamic State.
Speaker 2: Where are you at in Orlando?
Speaker 5: Where?
Speaker 2: In Orlando?
Speaker 1: Omar is inside a bathroom at Pulse, a gay nightclub
Speaker 1: in Orlando, Florida. Just minutes earlier, he'd slaughtered dozens of
Speaker 1: people with an assault rifle and a handgun.
Speaker 2: Two forty eight am.
Speaker 1: Police are now desperately trying to call Omar. There are
Speaker 1: people trapped inside the bathroom with the shooter. Some are dead,
Speaker 1: they're blood pooling on the tile floor. Others are alive
Speaker 1: but wounded. The survivors are motionless, pretending to be dead.
Speaker 2: Hellas, hello there, Hi, there, this is Orlando police. Who
Speaker 2: am I speaking with police?
Speaker 4: You're speaking as the person who toasted allegiance to the
Speaker 4: Islamic state of the Ember aboudity put.
Speaker 1: As Omar talks to a hostage negotiator, he reveals his.
Speaker 2: Motive to do is prevent anybody else the US air strikes.
Speaker 4: They need to stop the US air strikes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I understand.
Speaker 4: You need to stop the US air strikes. You have
Speaker 4: to tell the US governments to stop bombing. Are killing
Speaker 4: too many children, are killing too many women, and they
Speaker 4: stand that. I feel the pain of the people getting
Speaker 4: killed in Syria.
Speaker 2: In all over than in the pas. Okay, So so
Speaker 2: I've just done something about that. Yes, I tell me
Speaker 2: what you did? Please you already know what I did. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: Figure out Omar matein murdered forty nine people and injured
Speaker 1: fifty three others. His horrific rampage ended with his own death.
Speaker 1: A police officer shot him in the head three hours
Speaker 1: after his attack began. You like know about this, You've
Speaker 1: heard the story. Most people are familiar with the Pulse
Speaker 1: nightclub shooting. But the story I'm about to tell you
Speaker 1: here is different because most of what you've heard about
Speaker 1: Pulse is wrong. I'm Trevor Aronson from Western Sound. This
Speaker 1: is Pulse, the Untold Story, an audible original episode, One
Speaker 1: Needle and a Haystack.
Speaker 6: It was a beautiful nightclub with two sections in it.
Speaker 6: You know where the dancers were and a DJ in
Speaker 6: one section and the main dance floor DJ there.
Speaker 1: This is a man named Orlando Taurus, and he knows
Speaker 1: the Pulse Nightclub well. Orlando has been going to the
Speaker 1: club for more than ten years and he's become a
Speaker 1: promoter of Latin Night. The night Omar Matine walks into Pulse,
Speaker 1: It's Latin Night, It's Orlando's night, his event. Just before
Speaker 1: last call, Orlando and a friend head to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They take a backway. Not a lot of people know.
Speaker 6: About because, as I'm well known, I gotta always say
Speaker 6: hello everybody, or you know, it's just never got to
Speaker 6: get to the bathroom. You ain't got time to say
Speaker 6: hello hello. Everybody stops show. You haven't seen one for
Speaker 6: a while while you've been you know, so I took
Speaker 6: the backway.
Speaker 1: Orlando goes into the lady's room. The bathrooms that pulse
Speaker 1: are marked men's and women's, but the signs don't really
Speaker 1: mean anything. Anyone can use either bathroom.
Speaker 6: All of a sudden, you know, I'm hearing pop pop pop.
Speaker 6: You know, sounds very sharp and clear, crisp, crispy clear.
Speaker 1: Orlando and his friend rush into a bathroom stall and
Speaker 1: close the door. The two men climb up on the toilet,
Speaker 1: hoping not to be seen.
Speaker 6: If it was a gunman shooting out there, he wouldn't
Speaker 6: see our feet.
Speaker 1: Orlando props his butt on the toilet and then presses
Speaker 1: his feet against the door in front of him. His
Speaker 1: friend sits on the side of the toilet and lifts
Speaker 1: his feet up. Orlando hears more gunshots. They're getting closer.
Speaker 1: He also hears people running into the bathroom looking frantically
Speaker 1: for a place to hide. Another clubgoer inside the same
Speaker 1: bathroom calls nine one one.
Speaker 4: Hello, God, this.
Speaker 2: Is Arnest with their Land Police department on a record
Speaker 2: a line you've phoned on nine one one? Is everything?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, please of the poll p U L
Speaker 2: s E in Orlando for the shooting that he give
Speaker 2: me how many people? How many people are shooting?
Speaker 4: I think it's too I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I'm in the bathroom a bunch of people and he's
Speaker 2: shooting at everybody is leaving everywhere. Okay, from what you
Speaker 2: can see, did you see the description and as see
Speaker 2: white reppers, Hispanic you can pay, sant can home.
Speaker 7: Okay, We're gonna go some hills for you.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me anything that they weren't wearing.
Speaker 2: Nona's am with you now stand A'm gonna do this.
Speaker 7: Sus on the phone with us.
Speaker 2: Don't hang up, stay on the phone.
Speaker 1: The shooter enters the bathroom an assault rifle in his hands.
Speaker 1: Orlando quietly pulls out his phone and I started recording.
Speaker 6: I pressed my video record.
Speaker 5: You can't know.
Speaker 1: You can hear Orlando breathing as Omar in the background
Speaker 1: speaks to the hostage negotiator. Omar says he's planted a bomb,
Speaker 1: but he's bluffing away inside the bathroom. Cell phones are ringing,
Speaker 1: the shooting has just hit the news, and concerned family
Speaker 1: and friends are calling their loved ones. The attack at
Speaker 1: the Pulse nightclub has been described many ways the deadliest
Speaker 1: terrorist attack since nine to eleven, the deadliest mass shooting
Speaker 1: in modern US history, which it was at the time,
Speaker 1: but is no longer lest attack on a gay community
Speaker 1: in US history, which it still is. I've been working
Speaker 1: as a journalist here in Florida for two decades. For
Speaker 1: much of that time, I've been covering with a critical eye,
Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation the FBI, the agency tasked
Speaker 1: with the very difficult job of preventing terrorist tax and
Speaker 1: mass shootings. I remember waking up that June morning at
Speaker 1: my home in Saint Petersburg, Florida, just a two hour
Speaker 1: drive from where the murders occurred, and seeing the images
Speaker 1: on the news, police and emergency vehicles, their lights ablaze,
Speaker 1: Patrons bloodied and shaken sitting on curbs and in nearby
Speaker 1: parking lots, bodies on the ground covered with drapes to
Speaker 1: give the deceased final dignity.
Speaker 8: There are more than a list of names. There are
Speaker 8: people who loved and were loved. There are people at
Speaker 8: families and friends and dreams.
Speaker 1: The tragedy becomes a national news event, with CNN's Anderson
Speaker 1: Cooper on the scene hours after the attack. He reads
Speaker 1: out the names of the victims.
Speaker 8: Juan Ramon Gyerrero, his cousin, said, Juan came out to
Speaker 8: his family just this year. I was afraid they might
Speaker 8: not accept him, but they did.
Speaker 9: He was twenty two.
Speaker 8: Christopher Andrew, known as Drew.
Speaker 9: He was Jan's boyfriend.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 7: The shooter has been identified, of course, as Omar Mattein.
Speaker 1: Journalists quickly framed the shooting as an act of terrorism.
Speaker 7: In one of the early press conferences around seven am
Speaker 7: this morning, you had an FBI official say that early
Speaker 7: leads suggest that he was motivated by jihadist ideology.
Speaker 1: But terrorism was only one motive. Were soon told Omar
Speaker 1: also suffered from an intense internal conflict.
Speaker 11: Our team, with new reporting as well on the gunman's
Speaker 11: secret life.
Speaker 1: Reporters and law enforcement broadcast that the shooter was also
Speaker 1: secretly gay.
Speaker 11: A former classmate is now coming forward. Also, patrons of
Speaker 11: that Orlando nightclub, saying he'd been there many times before
Speaker 11: and that he'd been on gay dating apps, and the
Speaker 11: question now was he hiding a life at odds with
Speaker 11: his strict faith.
Speaker 1: This narrative took root because it seemed to make this
Speaker 1: senseless tragedy makes sense. Several news organizations bring forward men
Speaker 1: claiming to have had relationships with Omar, including one man
Speaker 1: disguised with prosthetics and makeup his voice altered.
Speaker 6: You had a relationship with Omar Martin?
Speaker 4: Yes, I have a relationship with Oma Martin.
Speaker 5: Did you have sex with him?
Speaker 4: Yes, I do.
Speaker 1: It all begins to add up. Attacking a gay nightclub
Speaker 1: in Orlando allowed Omar to end the war inside of him.
Speaker 1: Loretta Lynch, then the Attorney General, also endorses the narrative
Speaker 1: that Omar had targeted Pulse because it was a gay club.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you definitively that we will ever narrow
Speaker 1: it down to one motivation. People often act out of
Speaker 1: more than one motivation. This was clearly an active terror
Speaker 1: and an active hate. A flood of reports followed, claiming
Speaker 1: that Omar was secretly gay and had been to Pulse
Speaker 1: in the past.
Speaker 8: Well sources, including the hometown newspaper here, The Orlando Central,
Speaker 8: are now reporting that this was no the shooter's first
Speaker 8: time at the Pulse nightclub. The Central reports that at
Speaker 8: least four regular customers had seen him there before one
Speaker 8: of the.
Speaker 1: Cities, but none of this is true. Omar Matin, the shooter,
Speaker 1: wasn't secretly gay. The FBI knew a lot about Omar
Speaker 1: Matine for years before his mass shooting at Pulse. Federal
Speaker 1: agents had investigated Omar twice based on concerns that he
Speaker 1: might be a security threat, and the FBI promptly closed
Speaker 1: both investigations. And that's because Omar Matin's father was a
Speaker 1: confidential informant for the FBI. Sadik Matin secretly provided information
Speaker 1: to federal agents for more than a decade. Sadik's work
Speaker 1: was supposed to help the FBI identify potential terrorists, and
Speaker 1: then his son kills forty nine people and claims to
Speaker 1: pledge allegiance to a terrorist organization. Omar becomes the very
Speaker 1: type of terrorist the FBI pays his father to fined.
Speaker 1: For Sadik, this has the potential to threaten his livelihood
Speaker 1: after his own son commits the deadliest terrorist attack in
Speaker 1: the United States since nine to eleven, So Sadik takes
Speaker 1: action just hours after the mass shooting, Omar's father starts
Speaker 1: the false narrative that his son hated gay people and
Speaker 1: targeted Pulse because it was a gay club.
Speaker 6: Did he ever talk about homosexuality except one time that
Speaker 6: we were in Miami we saw the behavior.
Speaker 9: Of one couple and he got a little.
Speaker 11: Bit ticked off.
Speaker 3: What did he say?
Speaker 10: Nothing, just look at this, and what did you say?
Speaker 9: Well, there are two guys work kissing each other in
Speaker 9: front of the family and the kids.
Speaker 1: And this false narrative has a convenient effect. It allows
Speaker 1: the FBI to avoid accountability. The day after the attack,
Speaker 1: FBI Director James Comy claims the bureau has done nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 9: I don't see anything in reviewing our work that our
Speaker 9: agents should have done differently. But we'll look at it
Speaker 9: in an open, an honest way and be transparent about it.
Speaker 1: The FBI has never been transparent about its failings, and
Speaker 1: the bureau has never explained how federal agents let a
Speaker 1: mass murderer slip through their fingers, not once, but twice.
Speaker 1: As a journalist, I've covered the FBI's pursuit of alleged
Speaker 1: terrorists for over fifteen years. My focus has been on
Speaker 1: the FBI's use of sting operations, in which the FBI,
Speaker 1: using an undercover agent or a paid informant, pretends to
Speaker 1: be a terrorist and offers the opportunity for a would
Speaker 1: be terrorist to move forward in an attack. The FBI
Speaker 1: provides everything the targets of their stings need, money, transportation,
Speaker 1: prop guns, and fake bombs, sometimes even the ideas for
Speaker 1: the attacks. Since nine eleven, the FBI has napped more
Speaker 1: than three hundred and fifty people in aggressive terrorism stings.
Speaker 1: The overwhelming majority of these people didn't know an actual terrorist,
Speaker 1: only the FBI agent or informant pretending to be one,
Speaker 1: and many of the accused were easily manipulated due to
Speaker 1: financial desperation or mental illness. The primary way the FBI
Speaker 1: finds targets of these stings is through informants, and there
Speaker 1: are more than fifteen thousand FBI informants today. They work
Speaker 1: for the bureau in exchange for leniency on criminal charges
Speaker 1: or to make money. FBI informants can make inexcess of
Speaker 1: six figures a year. That's what Omar Matin's father, Sadiq,
Speaker 1: was doing for more than a decade, providing information to
Speaker 1: the FBI for counter terrorism investigations. The FBI has maintained
Speaker 1: publicly that terrorism stings are necessary to keep Americans safe
Speaker 1: to take off the street would be terrorists before they
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to meet a real terrorist who might
Speaker 1: help them launch an attack. The FBI's argument is plausible,
Speaker 1: but hypothetical. It's never really happened. There's never been a
Speaker 1: case of a would be terrorist with no connections, no money,
Speaker 1: no weapons, suddenly happening upon an ISIS or all kind
Speaker 1: of operative who provides all three. Hey, there would be terrorist.
Speaker 1: How about a bomb? So I've wondered if the FBI's
Speaker 1: counter terrorism strategy actually makes us less safe by distracting
Speaker 1: federal agents from real threats. It's a theory that's difficult
Speaker 1: to prove, but I started thinking more about this following
Speaker 1: a trip to Chicago in February twenty twenty. This was
Speaker 1: only a few years ago, but now seems like a
Speaker 1: different time. What I didn't know then, what no one
Speaker 1: knew then, was that in just a month's time a
Speaker 1: pandemic would put much of the United States in lockdown.
Speaker 1: And what I also didn't know then was that I'd
Speaker 1: be here telling you about why I was in Chicago
Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty. That's because I never expected to
Speaker 1: report on or write about any of this. I was
Speaker 1: in Chicago to attend an event hosted by the Muslim
Speaker 1: Legal Fund, a nonprofit that funds legal defenses in cases
Speaker 1: of abuse of prosecutions under anti terrorism laws. At this event,
Speaker 1: I'd soon meet the person authorities said could have stopped
Speaker 1: the Pulse shooting but didn't. Two years earlier, in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: Nor Salman, the widow of the Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Matin,
Speaker 1: won an acquittal at trial. The Justice Department alleged that
Speaker 1: Nor assisted with the planning of Omar's attack and provided
Speaker 1: misleading statements to investigators. Federal prosecutor's evidence included a lengthy
Speaker 1: and detailed confession written by an FBI agent and signed
Speaker 1: by Nor less than twelve hours after the shooting, but
Speaker 1: a federal jury rejected the confession as coerced and false,
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the evidence the Justice Department presented.
Speaker 1: Nor's acquittal was extraordinary. In the two decades after the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven attacks, Muslims charged with terrorism in the
Speaker 1: United States have faced daunting odds before juries of their Peers.
Speaker 1: Nearly one thousand people have been charged under anti terrorism
Speaker 1: law since nine one eleven, and just three people, including Nor,
Speaker 1: have been acquitted at trial. Just three people. Tonight, nor
Speaker 1: Selman leaving the courthouse without a word.
Speaker 9: Outrage from victims' families.
Speaker 1: Nor's acquittal made national news, with much of the coverage
Speaker 1: focused on the gay communities, outrage that she had not
Speaker 1: been held accountable.
Speaker 9: She knew that her husband was doing what he was doing,
Speaker 9: and shame on her.
Speaker 8: I am in this belief is to feel like we've
Speaker 8: been slapped in the face.
Speaker 1: At this conference in Chicago, Nor was scheduled to speak
Speaker 1: what was to be her first public comments since her acquittal.
Speaker 1: There was a reception beforehand, and people were milling about
Speaker 1: talking to old friends and colleagues. I saw Nor off
Speaker 1: to the side at a table with her son. She
Speaker 1: looked uncomfortable, so I walked over and introduced myself. She
Speaker 1: was wearing a black d that matched her long black hair.
Speaker 1: We exchanged small talk. She told me about her son,
Speaker 1: who was just a couple of years older than my daughter,
Speaker 1: and she confessed that she was nervous. I've never given
Speaker 1: a speech before. Nor told me blur out the crowd
Speaker 1: in your mind, as if you're looking into a camera
Speaker 1: that's out of focus. I suggested, that's what I do.
Speaker 1: I don't know, she said softly. I just don't know
Speaker 1: how to do any of this. As Nor confided in me,
Speaker 1: I looked over to see her son sitting at the table,
Speaker 1: his head stooped over a Nintendo switch. He was playing Fortnite,
Speaker 1: what was then and continues to be the world's most
Speaker 1: popular video game. In the game, you battle other players
Speaker 1: with an arsenal of weapons handguns, shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers.
Speaker 1: Nora's son, Omar's son was sitting there, navigating the video game,
Speaker 1: with his character firing round after round from a gun
Speaker 1: very similar to the one his father youth. I found
Speaker 1: this moment simultaneously confusing and enraging. How could he play
Speaker 1: this game here? How could she allow him to play it?
Speaker 1: I was thinking all this as Nor stood there next
Speaker 1: to me, vulnerable, describing how she was so nervous about
Speaker 1: what she needed to do, but how she was shy,
Speaker 1: how she lacked confidence, and how she wasn't sure if
Speaker 1: she just freeze up when placed in front of people.
Speaker 1: I realized then that I was being unfair Nor in
Speaker 1: her son didn't kill anyone. They weren't responsible. Against extraordinary odds,
Speaker 1: the federal jury acquitted her. I also realized that I
Speaker 1: allowed my assumptions about her and what happened to color
Speaker 1: my opinion. But I wasn't the only one. Many Americans
Speaker 1: did this, assumed that she was somehow responsible and had
Speaker 1: gotten away with it. Wife should have known. Many of
Speaker 1: us were guilty of thinking that. A part of me,
Speaker 1: deep down wanted to blame Nor. A little bit later
Speaker 1: that evening in Chicago, I took one of Nor's lawyers aside.
Speaker 1: Charlie Swift was dressed in a suit, his tie not
Speaker 1: slightly loosened, and he stared at me intensely through his glasses.
Speaker 1: Charlie leaned in toward me, uncomfortably close. He has a
Speaker 1: habit of doing this. He's a close talker.
Speaker 5: About a month in they turned over and we located
Speaker 5: inside the discovery Omar matined and Nora Solomon's cell phone.
Speaker 1: Records, Charlie's describing how the Justice Department gave him the
Speaker 1: evidence in Nor's case. Nor's supposed confession made a few
Speaker 1: specific claims that Omar targeted Pulse in advance, that she
Speaker 1: and Omar had previously surveiled the club and that she
Speaker 1: was aware of his plans for the attack, But data
Speaker 1: transmitted by Omar's phone and Norris phone didn't support any
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 5: We'd identified that tower by the pulse. It's pretty close,
Speaker 5: and we went and looked for that tower in either
Speaker 5: of their cell phone records and it didn't exist, not
Speaker 5: until the night of the shooting.
Speaker 1: The phone tower closest to Pulse had communicated with Omar's
Speaker 1: phone only on the night of the shooting, and it
Speaker 1: had never communicated with Norris phone. So Charlie hired an
Speaker 1: expert to analyze data from the tower and the phones.
Speaker 5: He was able to tell beyond that, okay, which direction
Speaker 5: is it receiving. He was able to tell the speed
Speaker 5: at which they were traveling. He was able to find
Speaker 5: fragments inside it on directions and searches that were there
Speaker 5: from that night. And he calls us back a week
Speaker 5: later and he goes, he did never search for the pulse,
Speaker 5: and he drove by it at random. And I go, Richard,
Speaker 5: that's a provocative statement. Can you prove that? He goes
Speaker 5: come to Florida. So I got on a plane and
Speaker 5: I flew to Florida, and he put up the first
Speaker 5: of a PowerPoint that would be admitted at trial, perfected,
Speaker 5: and I go, oh my god, wow.
Speaker 1: What Charlie and his defense team discovered was completely at
Speaker 1: odds with the public's understanding of what happened. The cell
Speaker 1: phone data revealed that Omar took a random route to
Speaker 1: Pulse and suggested that he chose the club as his
Speaker 1: target at the last minute. The data also appeared to
Speaker 1: prove that there was no way that Nor's confession could
Speaker 1: be true. Omar may not have even realized Pulse was
Speaker 1: a gay club when he walked in with an assault rifle.
Speaker 1: Why has the false narrative that Omar was secretly gay
Speaker 1: and specifically targeted Pulse persisted because that narrative has been
Speaker 1: useful for the government.
Speaker 5: They had excuses, it's part of an ongoing investigation, blah
Speaker 5: blah blah. But they would allow facts that were they
Speaker 5: knew to be false to continue to circulate in the
Speaker 5: media because it hit their narrative. It's an easy narrative.
Speaker 5: When you first heard it, you heard there's been a
Speaker 5: mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and
Speaker 5: they led with gay nightclub. Your immediate part was somebody
Speaker 5: who hates gay and lesbian persons. Perhaps your first picture
Speaker 5: was not of a Muslim. Perhaps your first picture was
Speaker 5: of some right wing militia that thought gay people should die.
Speaker 5: Because there have been so many of that in the news,
Speaker 5: so you're putting together the facts for it. Then you hear, oh,
Speaker 5: he's a Muslim. Well, okay, they hate gays too. Your
Speaker 5: mind flashes to these reports that Muslims in extremist countries
Speaker 5: have executed, killed, murdered gay people.
Speaker 1: That night in Chicago, Charlie told me that I needed
Speaker 1: to look into the case, that this was really a
Speaker 1: story about FBI accountability.
Speaker 5: The FBI is extraordinarily sophisticated when it comes to pr
Speaker 5: and it is months, sometimes years, before we learn of
Speaker 5: malfeasance in many cases, or problems on it. They hide
Speaker 5: it brilliantly.
Speaker 1: At the end of the conference, nor stood up in
Speaker 1: front of everyone to speak. Through tears. She was able
Speaker 1: to read a few lines from notes as Charlie stood
Speaker 1: beside her.
Speaker 10: There are my case. My family suffered so much. My
Speaker 10: mother's he hell disoriented, my uncle who was here with me,
Speaker 10: lost so much weight, and my sister was bullied at school,
Speaker 10: but they stood by me, just as all of you
Speaker 10: are staying with me today.
Speaker 1: A year or so after the Chicago conference, I started
Speaker 1: reviewing the government's case against Norsalman, pouring over transcripts and exhibits,
Speaker 1: and I was examining other cases too, the local investigations
Speaker 1: the FBI was conducting when agents weren't investigating Omar Matin.
Speaker 1: Through an examination of the Pulse nightclub shooting and what
Speaker 1: the FBI did and didn't do, I was coming to
Speaker 1: realize that the Bureau has had a very good reason
Speaker 1: for wanting to hide behind a false narrative. The FBI's
Speaker 1: entire program to identify and thwart would be terrorists actually
Speaker 1: makes us less safe. The Pulse nightclub shooting happened not
Speaker 1: in spite of the FBI's efforts to stop such attacks,
Speaker 1: but because of those efforts.
Speaker 2: So there's like twenty five people that are Yeah, this
Speaker 2: is like the biggest mass shooting fucking way worse.
Speaker 1: This is from police body camera footage in the minutes
Speaker 1: after the Pulse nightclub shooting, the responding officers are comparing
Speaker 1: this mass shooting to one that happened seven months earlier
Speaker 1: in San Bernardino, there's just twenty five people.
Speaker 11: Done you ever prere shoppy people dying in that?
Speaker 10: One?
Speaker 2: Can never any nice? Nine nine.
Speaker 1: When the Pulse nightclub shooting happened in June twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: it was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. That
Speaker 1: distinction only lasted for a little more than a year
Speaker 1: until October twenty seventeen, when a gun ma on the
Speaker 1: thirty second floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas fired more than one thousand bullets into a music
Speaker 1: festival below, killing sixty people in wounding more than four hundred.
Speaker 1: We live in an age of mass shootings, and the
Speaker 1: agency task with a difficult job of preventing them is
Speaker 1: the FBI. That isn't just because the FBI is the
Speaker 1: nation's top law enforcement agency. Following the nine to eleven attacks,
Speaker 1: the FBI's top priority became counter terrorism, including stopping high
Speaker 1: casualty incidents like mass shootings before they happen. It's an
Speaker 1: understandably difficult job, but the FBI has vast powers meant
Speaker 1: to make that job possible, specifically, a post nine to
Speaker 1: eleven power known as an assessment, that allows the FBI
Speaker 1: to investigate anyone for just about any reason, so long
Speaker 1: as agents believe that person might be a security threat.
Speaker 1: In other words, if an FBI agent comes across an
Speaker 1: anonymous social media post claiming that a specific person is
Speaker 1: planning a mass shooting, that's all that's needed to launch
Speaker 1: an investigation, no reasonable suspicion required. As is typically the
Speaker 1: case for opening criminal investigations, FBI agents are looking for
Speaker 1: what they term leakage, when would be shooters intentionally or
Speaker 1: unintentionally reveal clues about their murderous plans. But based on
Speaker 1: cases we know details about, the bureau doesn't have the
Speaker 1: best track record. After the mass shooting at Marjorie Stone
Speaker 1: and Douglas High School in Florida in twenty eighteen, in
Speaker 1: which seventeen people were killed and seventeen others injured, the
Speaker 1: FBI acknowledged that agents had received a tip reporting that
Speaker 1: the future shooter was planning such an attack that our
Speaker 1: agents ignored the tip. More recently, in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: you a mass shooting in Colorado Springs drew comparisons to
Speaker 1: the one at.
Speaker 12: Pulse just before midnight last night in Colorado Springs, at
Speaker 12: a nightclub known as one of the safest places in
Speaker 12: town for the LGBTQ community. At first, people on the
Speaker 12: dance floor thought the gunshots were part of the music,
Speaker 12: stunned to realize it was gunfire and I'm hearing about The.
Speaker 1: Club Q gunman was tackled by a patron, preventing what
Speaker 1: would have otherwise been a deadlier attack. Five people were killed.
Speaker 1: The murderer ran a neo Nazi website, and he was
Speaker 1: motivated by hatred for gay people. In that case, the
Speaker 1: gunman's family had reported to the FBI the previous year
Speaker 1: that he was building a bomb and making death threats.
Speaker 1: The FBI opened an investigation of the man, but closed
Speaker 1: that investigation less than a month later. Instead, the FBI
Speaker 1: in Colorado Springs ran sting operations against racial justice activists.
Speaker 2: I'm Brandon Kimpball with Drew Rosen and the detective Love
Speaker 2: and at the FBI Colorados Brings Out office.
Speaker 1: In a recorded conversation with one of the activists just
Speaker 1: a few months before the Club Q shooting, an agent
Speaker 1: acknowledged what the FBI was doing and then said this
Speaker 1: as if predicting the future.
Speaker 9: We want to keep everybody safe. It's just obviously our
Speaker 9: we'd like to say, our successes generally don't make the
Speaker 9: news is and we screw up, it's because something went
Speaker 9: boom or there is a mass shooting.
Speaker 1: So what's unique about Pulse, beyond the scale of the tragedy,
Speaker 1: is that it was a mass shooting that the FBI
Speaker 1: made promises about. The bureau promised that agents would give
Speaker 1: us a full accounting of what happened and whether the
Speaker 1: attack could have been prevented.
Speaker 11: All right, good afternoon, everyone, and thank thank you all
Speaker 11: for being here today.
Speaker 1: The day after the pulsnight club shooting, FBI Director James
Speaker 1: Comy joined Sally Yates, the Deputy Attorney General, in a
Speaker 1: press conference.
Speaker 11: We're here to discuss the Justice Department's response to this
Speaker 11: stunning and unconscionable acts in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Comy makes clear on the first day of the investigation
Speaker 1: that federal agents view the attack as an act of terrorism.
Speaker 9: There are strong indications of radicalization by this killer and
Speaker 9: of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations. We are spending
Speaker 9: a tremendous amount of time, as you would imagine, trying
Speaker 9: to understand every moment of this killer's path to that
Speaker 9: terrible night in Orlando. To understand his motives and to
Speaker 9: understand the details of his life.
Speaker 1: Here for the first time in public, Director Comy admits
Speaker 1: that the FBI had previously investigated Omar Matine.
Speaker 9: Our investigation involved introducing confidential sources to him, recording conversations
Speaker 9: with him, following him, reviewing transactional records from his communications,
Speaker 9: and searching all government holdings for any possible connections, any
Speaker 9: possible derogatory information.
Speaker 1: The FBI knew Omartin very well and long before he
Speaker 1: walked into Pulse. But Komy assures the American public that
Speaker 1: the FBI will continue to investigate what happened in Orlando,
Speaker 1: and he promises the bureau will be transparent about its
Speaker 1: own failings.
Speaker 9: We will continue to look forward in this investigation and backward.
Speaker 9: We will leave no stone unturned, and we will work
Speaker 9: all day and all night to understand the path to
Speaker 9: that terrible night. We're also going to look hard at
Speaker 9: our own work to see whether there is something we
Speaker 9: should have done differently. So far, the honest answer is
Speaker 9: I don't think so. I don't see anything in reviewing
Speaker 9: our work that our agents should have done differently. But
Speaker 9: we'll look at it in an open and honest way.
Speaker 9: And be transparent about it. Our work is very challenging.
Speaker 9: We are looking for needles in a nationwide haystack, but
Speaker 9: we're also called upon to figure out which pieces of
Speaker 9: hay might someday become needles. That is hard work. If
Speaker 9: we can find a way to do that better, we will.
Speaker 1: But agents could have done things differently. They'd already found
Speaker 1: Come's needle and a haystack. The FBI won't release any
Speaker 1: information about this to this day. The bureau claims that
Speaker 1: Omar Matine's file remains part of an open investigation, preventing
Speaker 1: its disclosure to the public. So over the next seven episodes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to lay out what I've discovered about Omar
Speaker 1: Matine and the Pulse nightclub shooting, and why the FBI
Speaker 1: doesn't want what's in their files to be revealed.
Speaker 8: There's a relationship, a long relationship, two decades long relationship
Speaker 8: between the FBI and Almarmantine's father.
Speaker 1: I'll introduce you to people who knew Omar and his father.
Speaker 9: He could be full of rage, especially if he spoke
Speaker 9: to that.
Speaker 10: So there were times where he would get into a
Speaker 10: fight with his dad and then come take it out
Speaker 10: on me.
Speaker 1: This is the story of a father and son and
Speaker 1: their relationship with the FBI. His father was an FBI informant,
Speaker 1: and it is possibility that Omar may have known that
Speaker 1: and maybe a way to get back at his father
Speaker 1: and how a false narrative was created which covered up
Speaker 1: that relationship.
Speaker 13: They start to ask me a questions. I start to wondering, Nai,
Speaker 13: we won all your accounts from grind there, and also
Speaker 13: they start to say, are you sure you meant Ohmar?
Speaker 13: I say yes, I'm very sure.
Speaker 3: This is the narrative that people are living with that
Speaker 3: this man went out and slaughtered forty nine people and
Speaker 3: wounded fifty three others because they were gay, which is
Speaker 3: utterly false.
Speaker 1: This is Pulse the Untold Story. All eight episodes are
Speaker 1: available now on Audible. Search for Pulse the Untold Story
Speaker 1: on the Audible app, or go to audible dot com
Speaker 1: slash Pulse the Untold Story. Start listening today when you
Speaker 1: sign up for a free thirty day trial. For more
Speaker 1: on Pulse the Untold Story, Alphabet Boys, or my other reporting,
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