Samantha Vinograd, a former top counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security under Biden and now a national security contributor at CBS News, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Nov. 30 that Lakanwal’s first vetting would have been over a decade ago by the CIA prior to beginning work in the Zero Unit, “which was a paramilitary and intelligence force that partnered with the CIA incredibly closely on some very intense missions.” “According to the FBI, the need to immediately evacuate Afghans overtook the normal processes required to determine whether individuals attempting to enter the United States pose a threat to national security, which increased the risk that bad actors could try to exploit the expedited evacuation,” the audit said. However, the review found that while 55 Afghan evacuees who made it to the U.S. were on the terrorist watchlist, as of July 2024, just nine remain on the list and were “being tracked, as appropriate.” According to the report, “The remaining 46 were removed from the watchlist for a variety of reasons, which included a determination by the FBI that the individual was no longer considered a threat to the United States.” (According to the DOJ, “Watchlist nominations are based on derogatory information, which the TSC [Terrorist Screening Center] defines as intelligence or other information that serves to demonstrate the nature of an individual or group’s association with terrorism.”)
Author: Robert Farley
Published at: 2025-12-03 23:44:52
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