Government agencies are pointing fingers over how an Afghan national, who is now charged with plotting an Election Day terror attack, was allowed into the U.S. and when he was allegedly radicalized — as lawmakers are pushing for more information.
Authorities last week announced the arrest of Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who is accused of plotting an Election Day terror attack inspired by ISIS.
Tawhedi is charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS and receiving a firearm to be used to commit a felony or a federal crime of terrorism. Court documents say he liquidated his family's assets to finance his plan, including purchasing rifles and one-way tickets for his wife and child back to Afghanistan.
Tawhedi came to the U.S. in Sept. 2021 amid a mass evacuation effort as the Taliban took back Afghanistan. The U.S. would go on to admit more than 97,000 Afghan evacuees, of which about 77,000 were admitted via humanitarian parole.
Court filings initially stated that he came on a special immigrant visa but have since clarified that he came to the U.S. via humanitarian parole and later applied for SIV status. Parole requires a less intense vetting than the SIV process.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas initially refused to answer questions at a White House briefing last week. But a senior administration official told Fox News that Tawhedi was screened three times. He was screened first to work security for the CIA in Afghanistan, then for humanitarian parole to enter the U.S. in 2021, when he was vetted and screened in a third country, and then for special immigrant status, for which he was approved. His status has not yet been finalized.
Officials said they believe he was radicalized after coming to the U.S. and that there was no indication that there were any red flags to bar his entry.
But then the government blame game began on the question of when he was radicalized. Fox News is told that the FBI is still putting together specifically when he was radicalized, and if he fell through the cracks.
"The Department of Homeland Security is directly contradicting the State Department in terms of who vetted who," Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Fox News. "I think all of us involved know that the vetting wasn't as it should have been. They got out a lot of the wrong people and left behind the right people."
DHS said it did everything by the book.
MAYORKAS REFUSES TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ON AFGHAN ACCUSED OF ELECTION DAY TERROR PLOT
"When we vet and we do so intensively when we vet an individual, it's a point-in-time screening and vetting process. If we obtain information subsequently that suggests the individual could be of danger, we take appropriate law enforcement action. That is exactly what we did in this case," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this weekend on CBS News. When asked about his radicalization, Mayorkas said he wouldn't speak to that as it was an "ongoing investigation."
Fox News reported on Monday that two Oklahoma senators had received briefings from the DOJ but Rep. Stephanie Bice has not and has complained about a lack of information. Tawhedi was arrested in Oklahoma.
After the briefing, both senators expressed concern that another attack could be looming.
AFGHAN NATIONAL CHARGED WITH ELECTION DAY TERROR PLOT REIGNITES VETTING CONCERNS
"There was a vulnerability that was left that was able to be taken advantage of by, in this case, ISIS. It could be Taliban next time. It could be any other terrorist organization out there. And what I fear… is this is just one of probably tens, I wouldn't say hundreds, but tens of more individuals that are in the same situation," Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Fox News.
"This is real. And we have people that are trying to be able to kill us that are within our own country, they're planning," Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News. "An open border is a danger. We've seen that already, that we're living on borrowed time through this moment."
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.
