BREAKING. DOJ Reverses Course And Releases Full Transcripts

After a day of monumentally bad press over the redacted transcripts of the calls made by the Orlando jihadi killer, the Department of Justice has reversed course and released the full transcripts (see RedState coverage here, here and here):

The Justice Department made an abrupt about-face on Monday, releasing the full transcript of a 911 call made by Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, after originally redacting references to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The redaction, which sparked intense controversy, was meant to prevent the extremist group from using the attack as propaganda, the Justice Department said in a Monday afternoon statement.

“Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime,” the department said.

“As much of this information had been previously reported, we have re-issued the complete transcript to include these references in order to provide the highest level of transparency possible under the circumstances.”

The FBI excerpt ditches both “Allah” and “ISIS.” If the call had included Jesus or the NRA, anybody think they’d have done that?

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 20, 2016

There was no good reason for Justice to do this to begin with. Only craven, deceitful and duplicitous ones. It is a tragedy when the agency charged with keeping us safe from terror attacks has to be shamed into even mentioning the motive that Omar Mateen had for carrying out his rampage.

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