WASHINGTON, D.C. (WSAU) — Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson revealed a lack of cooperation between government agencies during the San Bernadino shootings in December. Now, he’s urging those agencies not to take action against those who reported to him.
Johnson is the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He confronted the heads of Homeland Security Investigators (HSI) and U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) with a report that HSI agents were not allowed into the USCIS offices in San Bernadino to pursue Enrique Marquez, the man who supplied the San Bernadino shooters with the weapons used to make the attack. HSI was also blocked from accessing the A-file containing evidence about the shootings.
In the committee hearing on Tuesday, Johnson questioned the motives of USCIS for obstructing the investigation, saying, “They had a tip from the FBI that Mr. Marquez might be at the USCIS office, and the officer in charge of the USCIS office wouldn’t allow HSI into the building and wouldn’t give them the A-file. That’s not indicating a great deal of cooperation between two different agencies under DHS, who’s supposed top concern is the security of this nation.”
USCIS authorities claimed that they were trying to obtain the same goal and there were protocols that had to be followed. The senator had his own perspective on the situation, coming from the private sector.
Johnson said, “If I had a day after a terrorist attack, and I had a team, armed, coming into my office and saying, ‘we believe someone who’s involved in that terrorist incident is in your building, we want to come in,’ I would have said ‘come on in.’ There wouldn’t have been a question in my mind, and yet that’s not what happened. It’s quite puzzling.”
Senator Johnson’s office has received word that the Department of Homeland Security is actively searching for the employees who reported the incident to them. Johnson has sent letters to both the Secretary and the Inspector General of the DHS asking them not to retaliate against the whistleblowers.
