Undercover FBI agent who urged jihadis to “tear up Texas” claims he didn’t know they were going to attack Garland free speech event

Erick Jamal Hendricks is on trial for his role in plotting the jihad attack on our AFDI Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015. This undercover agent was posing as a Muslim and communicating with Hendricks, as well as with Ibrahim Simpson, who along with Nadir Soofi attempted to attack the event.

Hendricks is another American Muslim who is on trial for plotting to kill Americans for exercising their free speech and violating the sharia. How many does that make? How many Muslims have been captured, convicted or killed in plots to slaughter me? Yet the left crucifies me as “too toxic” and carries water constantly for the likes of actual hatemongers such as Louis Farrakhan.

This undercover agent’s story defies belief. He claims that when he told jihadi Ibrahim Simpson to “tear up Texas,” that he was only saying what a mujahid, a warrior of jihad, would say, and that he wasn’t encouraging Simpson to “tear up Texas” himself.

“Steven Jane” is apparently hoping that everyone will forget that Ibrahim Simpson and Erick Jamal Hendricks thought he was a Muslim who was interested in waging jihad against unbelievers. They didn’t know he was an agent. So when he said to “tear up Texas,” Simpson likely saw it as confirmation.

And then “Jane” wants us to believe that he didn’t know that Simpson and Nadir Soofi had traveled from Phoenix to Garland, Texas to attack the event, and he was shocked when they got out of the car and opened fire. He was right behind them. Did he not notice their Arizona license plate? Did he not know what these men he had been communicating with for so long looked like, and was not able to recognize them from the back? And all this time he was communicating with them and telling them to “tear up Texas” and he didn’t know that that’s exactly what they were planning to do?

“Jane’s” testimony is absolutely beyond belief. It is the FBI covering up its complicity in this attack. If they were telling Simpson to “tear up Texas,” they had every reason to suspect that just that would happen. Yet they had no agents in place to repel a jihad attack. And they refuse to answer questions about why. We can only hope that “Jane” will be subjected to withering cross-examination that will tear his flimsy story to shreds.

Hendricks made it clear that he was an ISIS supporter and spoke of using acres of land to train recruits, the agent said.

“My work is for Allah. It is my full-time job,” said Erick Jamal Hendricks, making it clear once again what jihad violence is all about. It’s ironic that he said it to an FBI agent, with the FBI committed to the claim that Islam is a religion of peace that has nothing to do with terrorism. Did the agent try to convince Hendricks that he was misunderstanding Islam?

“Undercover FBI agent testified he was unaware of plans for 2015 ISIS-inspired attack in Texas,” by Eric Heisig, Cleveland.com, March 9, 2018:

AKRON, Ohio – An undercover FBI agent who testified Friday against a terrorism suspect on trial in Akron said he was driving behind a car in a city outside Dallas when two men got out of the car and opened fire in an Islamic State-inspired attack in May 2015.

The agent, who testified under the pseudonym Steven Jane, said he went to Garland, Texas near “The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” to develop his relationship with Erick Jamal Hendricks, then the target of an FBI investigation.

While Jane had previously talked to one of the attackers, he said he didn’t know Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi also were in Garland. He said he had no advance knowledge of the pair’s plans and was as surprised as anyone when he saw gunfire being exchanged.

Simpson and Soofi wounded a security guard and died after a police officer shot them.

Jane’s testimony lasted all day Friday as he detailed his interactions with Hendricks and Simpson, all of which took place through Twitter and various encrypted messaging apps. He is a key witness in Hendricks’ trial, in which testimony began Thursday in U.S. District Judge John Adams’ courtroom in Akron.

Hendricks, 37, of North Carolina is accused of conspiring to provide support to ISIS. Authorities say his mission was to recruit and train ISIS sympathizers to carry out attacks on U.S soil.

Adams approved a set of unusual measures to protect the undercover agent’s identity, which included having the agent use a pseudonym and wear a light disguise. He also closed the courtroom Friday to everyone other than the himself, the jury, attorneys, defendant and essential court personnel.

Others, including a cleveland.com reporter, sat in another courtroom and listened to the agent’s testimony through a laptop connected to a TV. When prosecutors showed exhibits, the images appeared on the TV screen.

Hendricks’ connection to the Garland attack is a key piece of the government’s case against him. Justice Department attorney Rebecca Magnone told the jury Thursday that Hendricks was “unequivocally tied” to the attack.

Hendricks’ attorney David Doughten argued in his opening statement that the government cannot prove the social media handles it cites as belonging to Hendricks were actually his.

Jane rarely used the defendant’s name on Friday, but the FBI has said Hendricks was behind all the online handles the agent referenced.

The vast majority of Jane’s testimony pertained to his online conversations with Hendricks, which took place between March and May 2015. Jane said Hendricks showed a deep-seated sense of paranoia, frequently changed his handles on various messaging apps and told the agent to do the same.

The agent also said Hendricks took other measures such as putting spaces between letters when he texted certain Islamic terms in order to avoid detection by any software the apps contained to find and flag certain words. Screenshots of the conversations between Hendricks and the agent showed that this was a pattern.

“This person clearly demonstrated they were concerned about spies early in the conversation,” Jane testified.

Hendricks made it clear that he was an ISIS supporter and spoke of using acres of land to train recruits, the agent said.

The agent said Hendricks’ messages were constant. At one point, Jane said he asked Hendricks if he worked, and Hendricks said “my work is for Allah. It is my full-time job.”

Hendricks had the agent reach out to potential recruits to vet them. Several were actually FBI informants, Jane testified.

But Hendricks also had Jane reach out to Simpson, a little more than a week before the attack in Garland, the agent said.

It was during that conversation in April 2015 that Simpson asked Jane whether he was aware of the then-upcoming event in Texas.

Simpson told the agent that he had tweeted about it and received many responses, including from a “muj,” a reference to a muhajed, or a person of Muslim faith willing to die to defend their religion.

“And you can assume what the muj said about such event,” Simpson messaged the undercover agent.

“Tear up Texas,” the agent said he responded.

That statement has been the source of some controversy, as some have interpreted it as the FBI appearing to push Simpson toward the attack he eventually carried out.

Jane, however, said it was his response to posit “what somebody else, a third party, what a mujahed would say.”

He said he never spoke to Simpson again and didn’t know Simpson and Soofi would be in Garland.

Instead, he traveled to Texas at Hendricks’ urging. The trip was approved by the FBI and the agent was in contact while there with a Garland police officer assigned to an FBI task force in Dallas, he testified.

Jane drove near the event and told Hendricks what he saw, including security measures, the agent said.

To further the conversation, Jane said he texted Hendricks that law enforcement doesn’t realize “a lion starring them down from behind the tall grass and in the woods.”

Hendricks responded by saying, “Alla h akb ar!”, something terrorists say before an attack, the agent said….