Glenn Beck released an alleged "event file" on Alharbi that seems to indicate that he was on a terror watch list and a no fly list. Beck later makes an effort towards interpreting this file for his viewers.
Now, let's look at that event file and see what we can make of it.
What we're dealing with here is a 212, 3b lowercase roman numeral 1 and uppercase roman numeral 2.
According to
justice.gov, section 212 refers to classes of aliens Ineligible for Visas or Admission based on (3B) Terrorist activities
- In General , any alien who
(II) A consular officer, the attorney general or the secretary of homeland security knows or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activisty as defined in clause (iv)
This doesn't sound quite like what glenn beck
told his viewers when he described the process for tagging someone with a 2123b
Well, According to justice.gov all it really takes to tag someone with this is a consular officer the attorney general or the secretary of homeland security who has reasonable ground to BELIEVE that that the individual is associated with terrorism. So it basically can be based on an opinion which I would hardly call a huge burden of proof.
Glenn Beck Claims Alharbi is armed and dangerous.
He claims that Alharbi is listed as
armed and dangerous on the 2
nd page of this event file which he said he would get back to in a second, but at no point does he ever show us the 2
nd page and at no point does he produce evidence to back up this claim despite heavily emphasizing that Alharbi is declared Armed and Dangerous…... I guess this is just not that important.
Glenn gets it wrong on the SAO.
Actually, an SAO is called a "Security Advisory Opinion" , NOT "Special Advisory Option" But at least he got the "Advisory" Part right.
The SAO is a process that is used to grant or deny a United States visa to certain applicants. The purpose of the additional review is to focus on serious issues such as hostile intelligence activity, potential terrorist threats, and diversion of sensitive U.S. technology. A relatively small number of non-immigrant visa applications, less than 3% the workload, are submitted by consular officers overseas for Washington-level screening by federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. So for all we know, "SAO not completed" could simply mean that it wasn't deemed necessary at the time his Visa was issued.
But to be clear, an SAO is basically for anyone who has suspected ties to terrorism or other illegal activity. An SAO is NOT a special status for Politicians, Journalists or VIPs as Glenn Beck stated.
Glenn Beck Questions Expired Visa
Glenn Beck seems to be deliberately conflating Alharbi with the other Saudi national who was being held on grounds completely unrelated to the Boston Bombing. This person is said to be in custody for visa violations. This was something that Beck himself explained on his show several days earlier and this information was also posted to his website, "The Blaze" on April 18
th. Whether or not you choose to believe this is up to you, but he should have at least pointed that out as a possible explanation for the discrepancy in the event file.
Glenn Beck Questions School Transfer
While it is apparently true that Alharbi did apply to the University of Findlay, but never attended as indicated in
this article,but whether or not he transferred is not a matter of the public and is quite frankly none of Glenn Beck's business. Information regarding Alharbi's whereabouts and the school he attends is between him, the school and immigration officials. It is more likely that he applied for a Student Visa while he was slated to attend the University of Findlay, but was later accepted to another, more preferable school and was transferred there.
And for what it's worth. Alharbi's facebook page indicated that he was attending the New England School of English in Massachusetts.
Glenn Beck Exlplains the Event File Process
Glenn Beck claims to have intimate knowledge of the event file creation process, but none of this information can be corroborated outside of this program. He claimed that his sources were impeccable, and yet using publicly available information, I just pointed out a massive hole in his narrative when he claimed that Alharbi was given a special status under a Special Advisory Option which does not seem to exist in regard to Immigration. So much for.. Impeccable sources…
Later, Glenn Beck
discusses this event file with Bob Trent who is said to be a retired INS special agent.
Don't ever let facts ruin a good story, as soon Beck realized that Trent wasn't going to corroborate he narrative he interrupts him in the middle of his explanation to jump on to the next subject.
He brings up the "special exemption" but doesn't seem to have the event file in front of him because when you're speaking to an expert in the field, the last thing you want is to have the material that you're discussing right in front of you. As we already know, Beck is referring to the SAO which he called a special advisory option which is actually a security advisory opinion and has nothing to do with a special status. At this point Beck already knew that Trent was not going to corroborate his story as Trent already pointed out that the 212 tag is designated for someone who has not yet arrived to the U.S. thus placing the authenticity of his document in question. So Beck convieeeeeenently forgot about the SAO and just referred to it as a special exemption to avoid potential embarrassment and to make it appear as if Trent is corroborating his story by confirming that Visas are expedited for VIPs even though SAOs have nothing to do with VIPs, special exemptions nor other priority status.
Later Glenn Beck again discusses the Armed and Dangereous descrption on the 2
nd page of the event file that he still has failed to show to
Trent further clarified that the 212 tag is something that would be placed on an individual outside of the United States for the purpose of blocking him from entering the country. Therefore the tag would have no purpose to place on someone who is already within U.S. borders.
Now this could explain something providing that Beck's event file is actually real. What Trent just said indicates that the file may have been produced in error. He already pointed out the discrepancy regarding the 212 tag pointing out that it wasn't even the correct tag for a foreigner already within our borders. This could also explain why there were attempts to edit the file later. And in the case of an error, it would make a lot of sense that the state dept. would not want anyone else looking at this to prevent any further unwarranted investigations.
Alleged White House Visits?
Of course the guys over at
Infowars couldn't resist jumping on this conspiracy bandwagon despite the fact that doesn't seem to jive with their conspiracy theory, but who cares, a conspiracy is a conspiracy and any conspiracy theory is a good conspiracy theory.
Now, this is another one of those times where it helps to do some real research.
The first line of the event file contains the individual's name,
ALHARBI, ABDULRAHMAN ALI E
And lines 1, 3 and 4 are the only matches for the Saudi's given name and surname. As we can see on the event file, his middle initial is E, thus ruling out lines 3 and 4 whose middle initial is S. This leaves us with line 1 detailing an Alharbi who has a middle name beginning with an A. This could stand for Ali, but this person is shown to have visted the White house in 2009, a full 2 years before the Alharbi on the event file was even issued a visa according to the document
Michelle Obama is also reported to have visited Rahman in the hospital, thus proving some sort of a connection. Now to be fair the Blaze did point out that it is unlikely that the Obamas did not specifically visit Alhrabi, and that the visit took place while the president and first lady visited the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Based on his surname, Alharbi, people have speculated that he is royalty, and has family ties to terrorism. This comes from a lack of understanding of the construct of Arab Names which are unlike western names. The first name "Abdul" is the individual's father's name, the 2
nd name "Rahman" is his given name, the 3
rd name "Al-Harbi" is his tribe or his surname. Ali simply refers to the fact that he is very religious.
The name Al-Harbi refers to the
Harb tribe in the Arabian peninsula. And while there is no official population count, it's population is estimated at 4 million is Saudi Arabia.
So sharing a surname in an Arab country in no way indicates genetic relationship or acquaintance much in the same way that sharing a surname in the western world does not indicate genetic relationship or acquaintance.
The fact of the matter is that there are numeral discrepancies in the event file that he produced as evidenced by Bob Trent and official government documents so who knows whether that was even real or fake or simply produced in error. Either scenario is just as likely.